Twigsy, Soho, and the other 2 guys camping there got up at 6:30 and were all gone by 7:15.   I managed to crawl out of my tent by then.   Was not going to be a early start for me.    Finally made it on the trail a little before 8.  

This is definitely not a good place to get water.   

Walking along I got passed by three guys who had camped on a ridge line a few miles back.   They were in tight formation and hauling ass.  We hooked up again at the next stream to get water.    Also ran into a couple guys (Kyle and Derek) who I chatted with at Seiad valley the day before.   They are section hiking from here to Canada.   Unfortunately they still have some things to learn about through hiking and, unfortunately, are surrounded by folks like me who have already done a 1000+ miles.   It will be hard on them. 

I filled up an got ready to leave.    Told the 3 formation hikers that they looked like a NASCAR team drafting each other up the trail.   Since I was leaving ahead of them that they should not rear-end the pace car.       

Half an hour later NASCAR was on top of me again.   I pulled over and let them tear it up. 

Our plan was to do about 20 miles today.   There is about 4k of climbing up/down.   Usually that would be a normal day, but I was dragging today.   Heat was part of the problem.  It was 90-ish most of the day even at this altitude.

Here was a nice 1k climb in the hot sun.  

I took a few pictures looking South.   You can see where the trail dropped down and the current climb began.   All that “mist” in the background is smoke from that fire we were watching last night.

 Lots of meadows with wild flowers up here.

I grabbed one and stuck it in my pack strap.   Gotta have some style out here on the trail. 

The day kept grinding on.   I caught up to and passed Soho and Twigsy taking a break.   I just kept hiking.   We are all going pretty slow today.   

Finally got to the campsite at 7:30.  

It was a long day.   We were sitting around the campsite trying to figure out why we were going so slow today.   I did the math and suggested it was like doing a 30 mile day with 10k of elevation gain over 24 hours.   Harsh.   

The day ended with a ~21 miler at 1685.  Tomorrow we immigrate to Oregon.