It was a long day!
I was up at 5:15 and trying to hitch a ride back to the trail at 5:45…I only saw 5 cars go by in an hour (two were USFS work trucks). Luckily, I bumped into a hiker named Focus who I had met 1000 miles ago in SoCal and he had arranged a ride at 7:00.

Loading up the pickup truck to get back to the trailhead 10 miles away.

It was a bluebird day!

We all wound up taking lunch at the same spot (the last water source for 12 miles).

Lots of wildflowers today 🙂

There were actually more water sources than expected from all the cascades coming off the snow.

There were several small tricky sections of snow to traverse. I wound up snapping one of my hiking poles not too far from here 😦
Luckily, I got cell service at the top and sent an SOS to Katy at mission control to ship out one of my spares.

View from the top.

Much more rugged than I expected.

If you look closely at the horizon on the right side Mt Shasta is peaking above.

This was a big burn area with incredible wildflowers covering the hillside.

You’d think I was back in the Smoky Mtns !

We were actually in the Marble Mtn’s.

One more tricky snow field to end the day (with one pole).

I was getting to camp just as the sunset around 9:00…exhausted!