Day 36: Rain rain go away.

Wednesday, July 22

I usually set my alarm for 5:45am. This morning when the alarm went off, it was raining. We definitely didn't want to get ready in the rain so we went back to sleep. We are only hiking with Andy and Leah at the moment and they weren't getting up either. Around 7:15 the rain died off and we got up and started hiking. It rained off and on all day but nothing too crazy.

Like the last couple days we had a lot of steep up and downs. The terrain and vegetation was very much like the Sierras. I liked it a lot.

We saw one section of the profile that looked insanely steep. It gained 1000ft over 1 mile. We weren't looking forward to that. When we got to the base of it we had to do a little pep talk to get us ready for the climb.

As we began the climb, we noticed that the trail was very new. As we began to climb, it wasn't as steep as we expected. We realized that within the last year or two this new trail was put in to lessen the grade. Our maps just haven't been updated yet with the new trail. It turned out to be around 3 miles of very nice switchbacked trail for the 1000ft of gain. We were all happy for the new trail.

Around 6:30 we decided to stop to make dinner. Our plan was to go another 3-4 miles after we ate to make up for the late start. But, just as the day began, a storm quickly rolled in as we were eating and it began to rain. We decided just to set up the tents and stay where we were for the night.