July 29

With every up comes a down. Today certainly had some of the downward trend to it. It started out cold and in a stiff easterly breeze blowing through our exposed campsite. I had a wonderful view of the stars all night with no tent, but no break from the wind that started around 5:00 am. Louis and I shivered over our oatmeal and I packed up early and headed for a patch of sunlight in the valley below. There I warmed up in the sunlight, and Louis caught up not long after. We met a few section hikers down the trail and everything went smoothly until about 3 miles from our lunch site. I had a huge blister coming in on the pad of my right foot. I took off my socks and popped the blister and walked for the next mile in searing pain. After that mile, and with a little help from vitamin I (ibuprofen), I pushed on for the lunch spot. When I arrived it was so polluted with mosquitoes that Louis decided it was best to set up his 1-man tent (mine is just a tarp), and eat inside of that. It was cozy but we managed and were completely bug free for a few minutes. After lunch, we met Charlie on the trail. Charlie is a nobo thru-hiker, and more of a true representation of a PCT hiker than Wind Warrior was. WW seems sick of the trail and ready to be done. Charlie was lonely, I think we chatted for close to an hour, but very happy to be on trail and with one of the smallest packs I've ever seen for such a hike. I think it was about 38 liters... That's not much more than a backpack you see on an 8th grader getting on the bus for school. 

We are camped 26 miles at a neat spring with the freshest, cleanest water on the whole trail. Louis's leg is much worse and my feet are killing me right now. One of us may take a zero in Trout Lake, we will see how we feel tomorrow. One last thing worth noting was finding a patch if wild strawberries and grazing for a few minutes on those just before we reached this spring. Sooooo good.