Woke up early in the morning and headed out around 5:30. Feet are feeling good. That rest helped alot. This bit is following the ridge so I’m making some good time. Ran into a few day hikers until Pioneer CG.  Had an interesting encounter at Pioneer around 10 in the morning. A kid named Twister is sitting under a tree with his shoes off and his feet have like a dozen Band-Aids of various sizes and states of stickiness. I stop to chat and he is going on about partying in Lake Morena and that his group is a few miles ahead. Something a little odd about that boy.

I bypassed the horse trough at Pioneer, but targeted Sunrise trailhead for my water stop.  That horse water wasn’t looking so good. Sunrise is about 18 miles from Mt Laguna and there should be plenty of water driven in by trail angels. When I got there, sure enough there was a pile of gallon jugs of water. Only one hiker around, but she pointed me to a small climb of trees at the end of the parking lot. There I found a group of 4 hikers huddled under a tiny bit of shade.

They made a bit of room for me and chit-chatted while making some DELICIOUS Chile Mac. Couple gals named 35 and Late Start. Two guys Gourmet and CocaCola. Gourmet has done the AT in ’19 and from Wisconsin, so it’ll be interesting when he meets StormTrooper. 35 did the trail from Tehachapi North. She is back to finish this section then bouncing to Stehekin, WA to work at the bakery there. It will be really cool to say hi when I pass through later this year. Late Start did the CDT last year, so there is a bunch of hiking power here.

I want to catch up with my boys, so I took off early and jammed in a bunch of downhill miles. Finished up at mile 66. I stopped at the same camp I hiked into last time. Really nice spot with plenty of room. My Sunshine Trailhead tree people all turned up with a couple other strays and made camp. They were chatting into the evening, last thing I recall hearing was “Oh Salty J went to bed early”, heh. Yes he did. 23 miles today.