This morning Soho arranged a ride from the motel to the trail at 6:15 AM.  As soon as we got dropped I felt nature calling.  Instead of answering the call in a nice porcelain paradise I spent some time squating in the woods.  I need to do a better job scheduling my bodily functions.

 

Here is the elevations profile of my misery for today.  

This climb started easy enough.   Some gradual ups and downs.   Lots of water.   Along the way I passed some gal sitting in her campsite.   She had a fire going and her dog was in her tent.   It was 10am.   So any practical hiker would have been on the trail by now.   I figure this is someone to avoid.   So I say hi and keep climbing. 

 

Found out later that Soho spent a little time talking to her.   She is from Minneapolis.  Came out yesterday to  start hiking North.  Drove out to Dunsmuir and had sold everything.  She has a canvas backpack with no frame and a $400 budget.  She has hiked 8 miles so far.   Glad I didn’t stop.

First bit was in the forest. 

 

Then it began to show some promise. 

Then I got some nice views. 

  It was a workout climbing up all this.   I was sweating my tail off.   The good news was that for each 1,000 feet, I was trading 3 or 4 degrees of temperature, so by the time I hit 6k, it was a reasonable 75 or so.   

 

There was a bunch of nasty switch backs going up.  Check this out….somebody came up here and stacked all these rocks to give us a trail.   

Hitting the top was some easy ups and downs.   

 Here is a view back on the Crags.   Zoom into the lower right.   That line of trail was the switch backs coming up.   About 3k of gain there. 

Ran into a few Southies on the way.    Didn’t talk to them  much, was panting through the 5k worth of climbing.   FInally found Soho at mile 1518 and setup camp.   It was a rough day.   Lot of exposed climbing.   Did almost 20 today.    Tomorrow is the big day, planning for (my) first 30 miler.