While at Old Station, I had a brief exchange with Steph and her crew from Portland.   They are aiming to link up with us on August 19th in Oregon and hike into the Jefferson wilderness to catch the eclipse.   Here is a bit of the exchange: 

Thanks for the pep talk, RIch.    I’ve been thinking about what it means to do a 20 mile/day average and it means going a lot faster than we have been.   Even with 20+ / day on the trail, the town day to rest/recover brings the average down to 15 to 18.    So we need to turn in better performance to make it in time.  

Today will be one of the tests.    26 miles is the goal.  

Stopped briefly at Burney Falls to snap a picture, then kept hauling. 

It was mostly green tunnel stuff on this hike.  Thankfully, we are well past the lava rock misery.   Forgot to mention that yesterday we saw Paul roll into the Ranch.   He was last seen at JJ’s double fisting beers.    Turns out that he was hauling ass on Hat Creek Rim, tripped, and face-planted on the basalt.   He had a 1 inch wide scrape from his forehead, over his nose, to his chin.   He basically looked like someone drove a car over his face.   Wish I got a picture of it.  

Anyway, the trail is soft and wide.    Lots of shade, but nothing much to look at besides trees.   The trail was over grown in a lot of places, so much so, that I couldn’t even see my feet.   That made for some interesting stumbles.    On a positive note, my feet actually fit in my shoes now.    There is actually some padding now between my foot and the rocks and as an added bonus I actually have some tread.   I should have changed these out 200 miles ago.  

This was an interesting lake below Burney falls.   They are dumping water pretty fast out of here.

   

Ran into a gal named “Flame”.   She and I crossed paths in the desert before Kennedy Meadows.   She flipped up North and is now south bounding.   Her Dad joined her for a week of hiking.   They are doing about 15 a day.   We visited for a while and swapped some stories.   

Made camp at about 7:30 that evening at Clark Spring.    Tent up, ate dinner, and collapsed.   This was almost a 27 mile day.