I walked 53863 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 25 miles today.
I got a ride to General Springs from Pine and started hiking about 8:45
The high plateau is amazing! I walked for 9 hours on a carpet of pine needles under a vaulted cathedral of towering Ponderosa while the breeze freshened the day with a cool pine scent. This day reminded me completely of running through the Idaho woods as a boy and my legs didn't tire under the spell of the day. I finally made camp as the sun began to set so I had an abundance of time to eat, relax, and enjoy the evening.
The sun is now casting light until 7pm and the dusk light lasts nearly to 7:30. This means more time to hike and cover more miles as long as the legs and feet can handle it.
I was surprised by the scarcity of water today. There was no water good enough to filter in any of the dirt stock tanks I passed. Water in puddles in the trail was much better than the brown muck in the tanks. I got water from East Creek which was flowing nicely. I then hiked an extra 1.75 miles to get water from the Blue Ridge ranger station. Got to talk to a couple nice ladies there for a few minutes and dumped my small bit of trash.
PapaBear will be happy to hear that I kicked a lot of sticks off the trail and I reset 7 AZT signs that had been knocked down.
Well, it's now dark enough to head to bed. Hopefully, the dozen deer and 15 elk I saw today won't come to visit. There's a coyote yapping somewhere in the distance but the wind has calmed so I expect a sound night's sleep.