May 3 | Miles 608.9 - 630.8

The night was unforgiving, and I woke many times to reinflate my limp sleeping pad and re-situate within my frozen bag. Nevertheless, I was up and out before the sun, frozen fingers and all.

I was swiftly caught no less than 45 minutes into the morning by Store Brand, when we both came upon Crazy Eyes who had accidentally missed the turnoff to the campsite the night before and overshot us. We all rejoiced at his alive-ness and continued on into the morning.

The miles melted away as we hopped from water cache to water cache, loading up on a full carry at each as again (you know the drill) there were no running water sources. The trail snaked over an endless series of dry, exposed hills littered with Joshua Trees.

We came up on Vulture around lunch and gobbled down some cereal and Tropical Sour Patch Kids in the shade as a bunch of ATVs sped by at a breakneck pace, leaving us in a cloud of dust.

The remaining few miles came slowly as we trudged up sandy hills that our shoes failed to grip.

Nevertheless, we still got to camp at 2:30 and earned ourselves a catnap. Mine was accompanied by Garden Salsa Sun Chips and crushed Oreos with milk powder added to make a shake. Combo of champions.

After our little siestas, we were greeted by a trail angel and his son visiting from Utah, who offered us grilled cheeses with paprika, beer, fruit pies, soda, and homemade cookies. They treated the 20 hungry hikers who’d arrived at camp to the array of treats from the back of their Subaru and we chatted the night away, treated to a beautiful cloudless sunset on our little saddle.