October 24

I picked my spot last night specifically with the sunrise in mind, and was not disappointed this morning. The sun came up over the desert below and from my ridge top site I watched the morning sky turn into day. We all hiked separately south toward the Anderson's "Casa de Luna". There was a large burned section of the trail that we hiked through. We were ankle deep in sand with blackened trees all around that were burned down to the stump. One of the most remarkable things was a spring bubbling across the trail in the middle of the burned section. After seeing nothing but burned trees for a few miles, everything seems gray scale and seeing the green growth around the spring seemed extra vivid.

After the spring it was about a mile down to the first road before our exit for Casa de Luna. There, Terrie Anderson met us with cold Coke and we put our packs in her van and slack packed the 7 miles to their road. I decided to trail run because apparently, I haven't had enough exercise lately. I don't know why I thought it was such a good idea, but once I started running I couldn't stop for all of the 7.3 miles. I ran it in 80 minutes which isn't bad considering the elevation gain. I recorded it on my GPS watch and will upload it when I get a chance and post the stats. We made it to Casa de Luna and have been hanging out with our huge sobo crowd for the afternoon. We picked up another sobo that was staying with the Anderson's, and will now have "Tittycakes" in our group. We got trail magic from "Muk Muk" a nobo that has finished the trail and happened to be in the area giving talks about her experience on the trail. She had an encounter with a mountain lion, and you can read about the experience and her hike at mexicotocanada2013.com.