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Half way!

Posted by on June 29, 2015

When I woke up near clear spring, Red Bass, Thunder Thighs, and Ice Cream were still sleeping so I packed up my stuff quietly and headed out. The trail was mostly flat and the morning was cool so I moved fast and got some miles in early.
I usually wake up around 5:30 and am hiking by 6 am. On a fast morning I can finish 10 miles by 10 am (10×10) and 20 miles by 2 pm (20×2). This was one of those mornings.

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The trail followed a ridge through the woods, sometimes giving me a view out. At one point I saw a thick plume of smoke and worried it was a forest fire on the horizon. With the continued drought in California, fire dangers are high and I hope they do not interfere with the hike.

In the early afternoon I reached a small opening on the ridge and the thing I was most looking forward to that day: the half way monument!!

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According to the monument I was 1,325 miles from the Mexican border, with 1,325 miles until the trail end in Canada. According to my GPS, I was at mile 1,320, but I considered it close enough to celebrate with some sweet snacks and text messages.

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The rest of the day was all down hill to the middle fork of the Feather River where I made camp. I hiked just over 35 miles that day, over 14 hours and was feeling really good.
When I got to the river, I found Two Dots and Lady Bug, hanging out in their tent. I hadn’t seen them in weeks and we spent an hour catching up while I stretched and ate. It was nice to hear their stories about the Sierras and everything since then. I was sort of hoping they could be hiking buddies for a few days but they weren’t going as many miles per day and they were only just waking up as I left the next morning.

When I stopped to get some water from a stream, I realized that I had lost the O-ring that goes in my squeeze water filter. Without this piece, the filter is essentially useless because the water just leaks out around the connection to the water bottle I have it on. I needed something to substitute for the O-ring in order to filter my water.
I had a few gummy lifesavers I had bought as a snack. I thought, “well, that will never work”, but I thought I would try it anyway.
Surprisingly, the gummy lifesaver did the job and I was able to filter a liter of water. However, I ran into a complication the next time I needed to use the filter. The sugar and gelatin in the candy was coming into contact with water and heat, which resulted in a melty, gooey mess. I replaced the gummy saver which helped but I only had a few left and knew this was not a long term, viable option. I tried using some mole foam as a replacement but that didn’t work. I ended up not filtering my water at all for the next week and just drinking from springs and fast moving streams. If I don’t get giardia from this trip I’ll consider it a minor miracle. 😉

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