Day 117

After the late and disorganized night last night, I decided to sleep in a bit. So I did until about 7 and it felt great. I finally did get up and headed to the resort store, which was pretty thin on options for breakfast. So I settled for a muffin and microwaveable breakfast burrito. They did have an espresso machine, however, so that helped!

As I ate I went over the maps for the next section and came to the conclusion that trying to do 94 miles in three days was just not in my best interest. So I had to pick up a couple extra items from the store.

After making a few phone calls and arranging a pick-up time with my parents for noon on September 1, I headed off to the trail at about 1:30. (I'm still not sure where the morning went.) I had a tall order in front of me because I really wanted to get about 20 miles in today so that I could do 30 each tomorrow and the next day and then follow that up with 15 the day I'm getting off the trail for a bit. So I headed off at a quick pace and found the trail to be a very popular place! I ran into more people going the opposite way today in about one hour than I did in one day on the John Muir Trail section of the PCT in the Sierras! Nevertheless, I was able to get to Charlton Lake, about 18 miles in. It's a great little lake and is pretty popular from what I can tell! The moon is about at half strength tonight and the reflection is nearly perfect due to the lack of wind.
So now it is nearly 10 pm and I'm going to try to get some rest in spite of the near-party going on a hundred yards away. Tomorrow I'd like to be on the trail by 7 so that I'm not hiking after sunset like tonight.

Thanks to Loren, Patty, and Mabel for the contributions today!