Day 20 - Monday, May 17

Tenting at Guffy Campground (mile 364.3).  Walked 17.1 miles today.

Got up about 5:20, and set out under cloudy skies along with Hoops, Dirty Knuckles, Chaperral, Snowflake, and Flying.  Today's climb is notorious for being long, dry, and hot.  The first few miles were easy uphill through the clouds with cool temps.

Chatted with Chaparral for a while.  She used to be a trainer for Ididarod teams in Alaska.  She said it was hard work, but she wanted to do something different.  Finally broke above them and took a break after 3.5 miles.

Snowflake calculated we'd been hiking 3 mph uphill so we were doing well.  Continued on and it got a little warmer, but the views got even better.

Stopped to rest after another few miles and we debated about what to do for the night.  Hike all the way to Highway 2 and hitch in to Wrightwood, go to the Acorn Trail and hike down to the town, or go almost to Highway 2 and hitch in tomorrow.  We couldn't come to a consensus but hiked on.

Eventually we reached our fourth sky island when we reached about 7,000 feet and pines began popping up near the trail.  Still more amazing views.

Snowflake, Flying, and I decided we would camp in the mountain tonight and hitch to town tomorrow morning.

When we reached the Acorn Trail Junction, the others headed down and the three of us continued on.  They are headed for The Bud Farm tonight, a marijuana farm that lets hikers camp, shower, and do laundry for a minimal cost.  We kept walking and reached Guffy Campground where we made dinner and ran into Simple Soul and Cracker who we hadn't seen since we were climbing up San Jacinto (Snowflake and I also camped with them at mile 112).

We have a unofficial metric for telling how cold it's going to be at night.  If Snowflake has her puffy jacket on before 7:30, it's going to be cold.  If it gets put on after 7:30, it's going to be warmer.  Well, tonight, all three of us had our puffies on at 4:30...buckling up becuse it's likely to be a cold one.  We're at 8,200 feet and the wind is howling.  We were all in our tents by 7:00, at least an hour earlier than usual.  Snowflake and I keep getting blisters (hers are still MUCH worse than mine) but I have a theory that the blisters (or rather our body's reaction to them is causing our feet to swell which is leading to more blisters, this creating a positive feedback loop.  We're going to try taking some ibuprofen tomorrow to see if it helps.  Hope it does.  Wrightwood tomorrow.