We woke up this morning after a hot night sleep. Didn’t sleep too well but once I got moving, felt great. I’ve been dealing with some pain in my Achilles and today was the first day in about a week that the pain seemed to be going away. It was a huge relief. I’ve had some anxiety over the smallest of aches and pains hoping it doesn’t become something that sends me home. I’ve been so grateful to be out here for even just two weeks.

On our walk down to the desert floor, I managed to lose the trail a bit and had to bush wack my way back to the path. There’s an app called FarOut and it has every piece of information you can imagine. It’s such a powerful tool and tracks our progress through GPS. Even without cell service it’s just as effective.

I managed to get rattled at by a rattle snake a couple times today. Once we made it to the valley floor, we filled up our waters and headed for the I-10 underpass. Along the way, trail angels left a cooler of Gatorade on ice. Such an amazing surprise at mile 207. The underpass was a lovely shaded spot with water, bags of oranges and apples and a massive sign for us to leave our signatures on it. Someone had the genius idea of taking an Uber to a nearby In n Out. That quickly became the days plan. Technology rules in some cases. We loaded up on shakes, burgers, and fries. I ordered 10 patties with cheese, no buns, fries and a vanilla shake. That was gone in about 5 minutes.

After spending some time in the shade, a trail angel by the name of Nitsy came by and dropped off some charms for us that state ‘enjoy the journey’. Everywhere we go, people ask what we’re doing and are all so supportive.

After getting ride back to the underpass, we began our hike back up into the mountains. We finished section B of the trail today. Additionally, we walked through a massive wind farm. The noise of the wind turbines was crazy.

As we climbed higher into the mountains, the sun began to set and the views grew more and more impressive. Everyday out here seems to top the next. My mind has begun to relax more and more as I start to note the smaller details of the journey. It’s such an amazing experience to be out here and walk to where we sleep each night. We cowboy camp under the stars and discuss the joy that we get over camping by a running river or the quantity of stars we see at night.

Tomorrow, we summit Big Bear and make it back up to 8,500 feet in elevation. It’s supposed to be a brutal day. The views seems to make it worth it.

Happy trails…