Day 7 - Near Rock Creek Junction

It's actually amazing that I'm even out here today since I got exactly one hour of sleep last night. When the alarm went off at 5:30am I felt sick from lack of sleep. I got up and joined my hiking buddies for breakfast and told them I wasn't gonna hike with them but instead would stay in town another night, and catch up on the things I had wanted to do during this overnight but didn't. Not to mention getting some sleep. As it turned out no rooms were gonna be available tonight so, if I wasn't gonna be able to sleep,  I might as well just get with the program. Anyway I t's better to do this kind of difficult hiking with company so what the hell... The taxi guy was coming to pick them up at 9:45 so I had to do some fancy dancing to get myself ready to go on time. 

So there we were, standing and marveling at the falls while the day got hotter. 

We finally donned our packs and headed south. I've been scared of this section for, forever. But I think we have a good plan to get it done in two shorter and one super long day, tomorrow. 

Today required 12.5 miles of walking in the heat of the day. The chrome domes help with the heat

And are pretty nerdy looking I think. But well worth the nerd factor if it's 10 plus degrees cooler under the domes. Here's another 

Towards 2pm we rolled up to a spot on the trail, only to find two big umbrellas, a picnic table, huge orange container filled with water and an ice chest with sodas. What a treat!

These folks do this every year and out of the goodness of their hearts. There is a locked box attached to one end of a bench with a note saying donations gladly accept so I dropped some money into the box. Nice of them to do this. 

Tomorrow will be a difficult day as we have 16 miles of hiking to get done by the end of tomorrow, leaving only 13 miles to do day three. But here's the deal. There is no water for the next 29 miles, with the exception of a stinky cow pond. I'll be leaving here with 6.5 liters and hope that will be enough to get through two days. Let's see, that's just over 14 pounds of water. On top of everything else. It's supposed to be 85 degrees tomorrow so the plan is to hike early, rest out the middle of the day then resume walking till dark. There MIGHT BE a stash of water at what is called cashe 22. At least there was 50 gallons sometime today. Who knows if it'll be there tomorrow? Oh, and did I mention there is very little shade on the Hat Creek Rim? My alarm is set for 4am😱 Should be fun.