Day 75 - Sunday, July 11

Tenting at West Branch Nelson Creek (mile 1224.0). Walked 21.6 miles today.

We woke up later than we planned as Frank forgot to put her phone on airplane mode last night and the battery drained, so her alarm never went off. It was 7:45 am before I made it out of camp.

A mile or so up the trail, I met Chaparral and we discussed plans to go to the lake a couple of miles away to swim/wash. We headed down to the lake and met a group of high school students who were hiking together and stepped to the side of the trail and put their poles up to make a tunnel whenever a hiker passed. We got to the lake. Chaparral went in and swam across the lake but I just washed my legs. Here, I met Hot Spring and we chatted. Frank, who was a bit behind me, pulled up with Lefty a bit later and we hung out for a while before I hiked on.

I passed some trail magic: a cooler of tea and soda. I passed it up and kept moving, navigating by paper map as my app still isn't working. I began a climb and leapfrogged Hot Spring a few times before arriving on the side of a mountain with a bit of shade and some cell service.

After a call to a friend about a resupply box, Frank had caught up and we walked the rest of the way up to the ridge through the hot terrain.

Finally, we stopped for lunch under a tree and Frank took a nap while I came really close to falling asleep. Neither of us wanted to go back out into the heat and we waited a while before finally venturing back out.

We had a few climbs in the afternoon before a final downhill and got to a campsite with a few others. It was still hot out, even under the forest of trees where we are tonight. We set up, ate dinner, and went to bed.