23.5 miles.
Today was definitely the hardest day so far. But looking at the elevation profile, it seemed like it should have been easy. It was basically all down hill.
We left lake morena around 6:30 and we were hiking by about 7:15. Sara drove ahead to a trailhead up the road so she could set up a water cache for us. It was about 6 miles from where we were dropped off. She then hiked south to meet us, then hiked with us to about mile 60, turned around, and went home.
Brendan, Prudence and I made it to mile 68 where a fire water tank is used as a water source. From there the temperatures got super hot. We had 9 miles of exposed terrain in the desert. It was brutal at times. With about 3.5 miles until our planned camp for the night we took about an hour break in the shade to cool off and wait for the temperature to cool off as well. We hit the floor of the desert in a half mile and had 3 flat miles to finish the day.
We learned a few things today about desert hiking. Basically hiking from 12-4 is death. It should be avoided. To make today more pleasant we should have stayed at the fire tank for a few hours to wait for the temperature to cool down.
Tomorrow is another exposed hot day. We plan on getting a very early start, followed by a long rest in the middle of the day, followed by more hiking into the night.
It should be another tough one.
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