I walked 45866 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 20 miles today.
7/24/17 Annelise, Batman, and the two of us all got up about the same time.  Since we aren't cooking, we were on the trail (road) first but Batman caught up to us in a couple hours and we played leapfrog all day long.   We've not seen Annelise but left a note for her in the second trail registry of the trip - out in the middle of no where.  In the registry, we saw that three people hiked by yesterday so there are some not too far ahead. A 6-mile roadwalk followed by another 5 miles of mostly uphill trail brought us to a beautiful saddle and views on both sides.  Rock Candy Mountain dominated the south and still had plenty of snow cornice along its ridge.  It was a wonderful spot to rest a bit.  Way up here above timberline, rock cairns were very helpful.  Also, some very over zealous crew did an astounding amount of work on the trail coming up - thank you! We carried all of our water containers full from the last supposedly reliable water source, but there were many spots along the trail for water. Oh well, just extra weight. Many fresh elk tracks and droppings along the way, but that was all.  I did get hit on the ankle by a grouse though.  She was right on the slightly overgrown trail and I didn't see her. Her baby fluttered to the side, taking my attention, and then she exploded just as I stepped where she sat.  Pretty cool.  We've seen many grouse, dozens of them. Now, we stopped at just 4:30 and plopped the tent by the trail after doing 20 because we're ahead of schedule.  It's a flat spot up high and has breeze but no water around.  This does change the usual uphill first thing in the morning though.  We'll have a huge climb up Bussard Mountain around midday - yuch. Oh, we are filthy dirty!