July 23

Despite all of their talk about being up at 5, breakfast at 6-ish, hiking at 7, our new hiking partners and Louis (now named "Poptart" for when eating his first bite of his first Poptart with his refined French pallet, revolutionized the way all of us will eat Poptarts henceforth. On his first bite, he mentioned that it took too long for the sugar to reach his tongue... So he flipped it over and ate it upside down. Only the French...) and I left camp at 9:00. With that start there was no chance for us to make the 24 miles planned, but we kept talking about it. We broke for lunch late, at 2:30 in the afternoon at what looked like a possible lake site. Turned out the lake was off the trail, and every one of us showed up with hardly any water. All except Reach, who kindly shared some of his extra. I guess there is truth to the scripture about gray hair being a crown of wisdom. Especially so, since after lunch there was no water for almost five miles. Those were some of the most miserable miles I have hiked on this trail. Just a little taste of what is to come, and a wake up call for everyone to pay attention to water sources. We are camped in a nice little clearing 0.2 miles from that little spring. We had a nice sunset tonight, good warm food, hit drinks and a toast to staying "true to the through".