Was up and gone around 6:30am, everyone else was still sleeping. The other people camped near the spring were gone though.

Sitting in camp with 0.0 miles for the day is nerve-wracking. Now that I have the new stove I can make coffee really quick. Sitting and eating breakfast is a no-go, hence the Walking Pop Tart Breakfast.

The WPTB consists of setting aside a Pop Tart while packing everything up. After the walking groove has been established, it is time to open it up. The first step is to hope that the Pop Tart is not one of those awful brown sugar ones. They are not labeled on the side (I am guessing to discourage mini-marts from selling them individually. I bought a case of them (strawberry were in the pack too) at Costco and knew I would regret it. Anyways, today's Pop Tart was brown sugar, oh well.

The clouds were starting to roll in as I walked. The forest turned into a big burnt area so it looked a little spooky with the fog in them. Since it was cold I just kept walking listening to Townes Van Zandt.

The trail kept winding between the wind/leeward sides of the mountains. Because of this, it would be very cold or very hot and sauna-like in my rain gear. I have yet to have any kind of rain jacket that is more than a fashionable non-breathing garbage bag.REI should just sell those weight loss suits they sold on TV in the 80's. (search for 80's weight loss suit on youtube). Speaking of which, every time my rain jacket went into sauna mode, I kept thinking of the aforementioned commercial with the woman saying in a nasally voice "I can't believe I'm losing weight just by sitting here!"

Apart from someone I couldn't recognize who was camped off the trail, I didn't see anyone until the end of the day. The weather was cold and cloudy. This meant I could not charge my phone and I watched the power drop and drop. I was a bit concerned that I didn't have my paper maps with me and this might be the first time I would ever actually need to look at them...since they are on my phone also. Since my camera died it also means I'm using the phone more for photos.

Around 330pm I got to Robin Bird Spring. I vaguely remembered it from 1996, but overall the trail almost feels new to me. I had gone almost 20 miles by 3:30pm....much better than yesterday! Despite the cold/wet weather I was in a better mood just because I had made some progress. I cooked up dinner and copied down the water report/trail notes into a little notepad in case my phone died.

Oh yeah, a couple miles before the spring I passed the 600 mile mark. Because my camera was dead I had to take a slightly different version of the photos I have been taking.

Right before I left the spring I saw a quick flash of blue sky, which was probably the most exciting thing of the day. After about an hour of walking the sky cleared up and I could see the adjacent ridge covered in sun. Eventually the sun worked its magic onto the ridge I was on. As soon as I saw I dropped my pack and started charging up the phone. I finished a New Yorker article and the phone was around 30%.

I walked for another hour or so and stopped again to charge up the phone some more. There I saw a girl with her dog. I had asked her if she had lost some dog packs and she said she did. I told her they were back at the spring I camped at last night...but it sounds like she wasn't going to go get them since they were almost 20 miles away now. Apparently her dog wasn't using them and they fell off her pack at some point.

I decided to skip going to the Landers campground/water and just keep pushing it. The Sugarhill Gang kept me entertained as the sun went down. Eventually I found a spot in the rocks. Looks like about 27.5 miles today.