Day 103: Birthday, Beer and Bears

July 31, Day 103: 1613.7-1634.5

Miles Hiked: 20.8

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful to have unobstructed views and gorgeous sunsets back.

Last night was a mix of thunderstorms and the soft noise of rain on the tent. Around 3am another storm came through and the thunder and lightning woke me up a little but the sound of the rain lulled me back to sleep.  Today is Cool Cat’s 30th birthday and his goal was to do a 30 mile day for his birthday. He said he’d get up at 6 and start hiking by 7, but by the time I’d packed up and was standing around it was already 7:30 and there was much more packing to do before the Salty Butt Bandits made it out of camp. The idea tossed out was to do lunch 15 miles from camp, and in my head that’s 5.5-6 hours of hiking. Since it was 7:30 that meant lunch would be at 1:30-2pm at my hiking pace so I needed to get going. So I left them to their packing and headed up trail. It was a lot of ridge walking today and everything smelled so fresh after last nights rain. 

Finally after 10 miles I came to a cabin off trail and some water and sat around for 45 minutes thinking the group would catch up. Instead they were nowhere in sight so I decided to push ahead to the planned lunch spot. 5 miles later I arrived and it was 1:30, right about when I figured I’d get there. Next in was Dunk and the group followed. Dunk set his hammock up for the birthday boy to sit in and had packed out beer for Cool Cats birthday. 

Birthday Boy Cool Cat

They also packed out a “Happy Birthday” sign that they hung between two trekking poles and we all sat there for the longest of times. I sat there from 1:30 to 5pm. The group decided to push another 5 miles to the next water source so I packed up and started hiking to camp. It was a beautiful 5 miles with views of the mountains to the west. I hit a flat part of the trail and a young looking bear popped up in front of me about 50 yards down trail, it saw me and booked it up the side hill. My 3rd bear on trail. I got to camp right around 7 and we all crammed into the site. We all sat around having dinner together and then watched an amazing sunset that had every color of orange you could imagine. We’re all counting down the miles and days of California, it’s exciting to think about crossing into another state soon.