Author: quintopia

I probably could have gotten going earlier this morning. It was pretty cold. I was going back and forth to the river, filtering water at the same time as packing. It was probably after 8:30 by the time I started walking for real.

Although the cold winds were still blowing in the morning, making it hard to get going and packed up, I still managed to get hiking by 9 and it was nice enough once I got into the warmth of the sun.

The first few miles were the same kind of hiking as the previous day: wide open walking on the sides of ridges. Vistas for miles and interesting things to see near the trail. But after 6 miles, I entered the top of Mission Creek canyon.

The cold wind made it hard to get up in the morning and hard to do anything in the way of packing up and filtering water. Even with a coat on, I was trying my best to avoid the shade. As such, in spite of my best intentions, I didn’t make it onto the trail until 9:30.

Although I got a good early start on getting up and was happy to see my shorts were dry, after collecting and filtering water and filming a long video documenting the hot springs and packing up, it was 9am before I started hiking.

I managed to get packed up enough to exit my tent shortly after the sun started peeking over the mountains, and was pretty much ready to go by the time the sunlight actually reached my campsite.