Miles: 1381.8 to 1412.8

Mileage: 31, plus 0.6 to water

Day: 72

Today it was partly cloudy; sometimes we even had clouds covering the direct sunlight for an hour or so. It’s the most clouds I’ve seen in weeks. Big, vanilla scoops of ice cream in the sky. 

Today we hiked the Hat Creek Rim. It was hot, even when we had clouds. And it was dry. It was about 7 miles to Lost Creek, which was then .3 miles off trail down a steep slope. From there, it was 23 miles to the next water source. 

Rumor had it there was a water cache at Forest Service 22, about 9 miles past Lost Creek. It was true; we found plenty of water there but you can’t count on caches. Too risky. So, we filled up at Lost Creek with enough water to get us through the rest of the day. We drank some at the cache just celebrate a little.

 

 
Fortunately, there was a breeze most of the way on the rim. That cooled things down occasionally. 

When we got to the water source at the end of the day, we were on private property owned by PG and E. “No camping” signs were everywhere. We had to move past their property line before we could find a place to crash. 

 

 
We set up the tent, ate dinner and fell asleep. The evening was warm at first but cooled off as we slept.