The day started with a 1.5 mile road walk back to the trail from town (not much traffic to hitch a ride at 6:15am).

Shortly after getting back on trail a bridge crosses the Yuba River…kind of a cool gorge.

The climbs today weren’t too bad considering the trail went from 4000′ to over 8000′. All in there was over 7000′ of climbing. Not as hot today, especially at the higher elevations.

This a view looking back toward Sierra Buttes which the trail traversed around yesterday.

There are definitely signs of summer’s end…all the ground cover changing colors. And what is that in the upper left corner? A rain cloud? A short afternoon thunderstorm was the first I’ve had in 2300 miles.

This transitional time of year is fantastic as there are still wildflowers hanging in there.

Some giant whales of snow will likely not melt by the time the next snow arrives. Try to imagine what it was like here two months ago in July.

Beautiful cold, clear mountain spring water.

This is home for the night at 8100′ 🙂