Alarm didn't go off.

Slept in despite the sun poking over the horizon.

I should make coffee.

Oh, there are the remains of a lookout tower I walked past last night. I should have camped up near there.

Let's pack things

Coffee has undissolved milk, where is my spoon?

Let's unpack everything trying to find spoon.

There it is, right in a spot I went through 1000 times already.

I have to go to the bathroom, there is nowhere really to go. I hope nobody is coming down the trail or they will be in for a surprise.

Pack up and walk the .25 miles to the lookout tower.

Make breakfast, take clock photos, work on journal, enjoy myself.

After all of that I made it onto the trail right at 10:00am. Looks like Oregon will have to wait until tomorrow.

I had most of the elevation gain out of the way so there wasn't much continuous climbing. Got to Cook & Green pass around 1pm. Back in Seiad Valley someone told me that someone from the area was doing trail magic (drinks, food, etc) up at the pass. So as I am approaching the pass, through the trees I see a table set out with cooking gear and a couple coolers. There are three folks sitting in chairs looking at a map. I don't recognize them but one of the guys looks like a hiker.

I approach them in a cheerful voice, "hey, how's it going?" I say. They kind of give me a non-response back. I introduced myself and one of them said they were geologists from the University of Wisconsin. I put two and two together and realized they were not PCT related at all. I made a joke and then went to the spring.

As I was loading up on water, Two (forget his trail name, two something) comes down the trail. I had just met him in Sierra City yesterday. He told me that Geared Up, Dora, and Boomstick/Kia's ride fell through and they were stuck in Seiad Valley. I am guessing that since they had mentally written off the hill climb they are going to try and find another ride.

Continued on for several more miles until I needed water. The spring wasn't flowing much, but I found a large leaf that I could fold as to funnel water into my camelback.

For the next several miles I tried figuring out where I would be and when in Oregon. Trying to meet up with Cora and Friends is going to take a little planning. After about two miles I realized i was so into calculating math and dates in my head that I had no recollection of what the trail looked like. Somehow I had just zoned out.

Decided to camp near Mud Spring. It was nice knowing that for once I would be making camp before it got dark. Right before I got to the spring there was a note taped to the tree. The note was the last thing I wanted to see, it said how it wasn't worth the side trip to the spring....cow crap everywhere. I decided to go look for myself. Yes, cow crap everywhere in the meadow and there was no good place to get water from anyways.

Since I had a little over a liter left I made camp anyways. I actually had to put on my coat and pants since it was "cold" out. I can't even think of the last time I had to wear them.

Dinner tonight is another Bear Creek meal. They are not horrible but I'm giving them thumbs down anyways. I"ve tried most of them and they either give you gas strong enough to part the Red Sea, or they have as much salt as the Dead Sea.

Unless I only pull a six mile day tomorrow, today was my last full day in California.