Day 4
Today's Miles: 16.5
Today we woke up and got off to our earliest start yet. We hit the trail feeling revitalized out of Mt. Laguna at about 6:45am. We banged out 6 easy miles before the sun got too high and stopped to cook at one of only two water sources for the day at mile 49. Twist and I kicked off our shoes and sat down for a little break when she suddenly found a Geocache in the side of a tree trunk where we were resting. Actually, truth be told, I spotted it and thought it was someone's trash they had left behind in a little Tupperware container. But naturally, Twist had to investigate and find out just what was inside. Turns out there was a really interesting PTC pin in there along with a note. The note basically said we could keep the pin as a prize for finding the cache.
Meanwhile, while Twist was relishing her find, I was doing my best at attempting to blow my hand off using our alcohol stove. Since the flame of an alcohol stove is very hard to see and we were cooking In the sunlight, I at one point saw there was no fuel left in the stove. So what did I do? Well went to add more, naturally! However, apparently there was still a bit of a flame burning and when I went to pour more fuel in the stove, the whole bottle ignited in my hand causing a huge flame to shoot out to my right and a loud WHOOOOMP that caused me to jump back about ten feet. Those of you laughing at this point (much like we are now) will be happy to know that the only casualty was the plastic bag my pasta noodles were in. It died a quick and painless death though as it was instantly melted.
The rest of the day was pretty warm and dry as there was no water until we camped at mile 59.
This source was empty, so was the cache.
The views today were really spectacular looking over the desert.
These photos don't really do it justice, so hopefully the videos we will be posting soon will. Twist is getting stronger as we were going to camp at mile 56, but suddenly she decided she wanted to do 3.5 more miles to where we are now. It felt like she was able to run them!
As for our HAM radio use, we haven't been close enough to any repeaters or IRLP Nodes to get to talk yet, but we have been listening. Based on our signal strength though, I think we will be able to start transmitting around Scissors Crossings.
-Seth
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Location:Sunrise Trailhead (PCT Mile: 59.5)
