Day 7 – Sunday 7/19/2020 – 1367.6 – clear, sunny, hot, gusty afternoon breezes. I was up at 4:39 am. Overall I slept well for once. Also I had to immediately poop. Like on the PCT I need to dig a hole the night before. I then packed up, ate breakfast, and was on trail at 5:20 am. My goal was a spring in twenty miles. Yup, a big mileage day. Today the trail was less off-road track and instead it was hunting for a footpath through the high desert. There were also a few more climbs. Also I got cell service and down loaded all my text messages but didn’t stop to read them. I didn’t have a lot of water so I had to conserve it. I arrived at the spring and three other thru-hikers were there: Matt, and Wyoming, who were hiking together, and S’mores, who had two other partners that weren’t there. We saw them passed by on the road and didn’t stop. I was thirsty and downed three 0.7L bottles there. S’mores said there was a stand of trees ahead that had campsites. He left to catch up to his friends. I ate lunch and then after about 90 minutes I proceeded on to those trees. I was officially done hiking for the day so I went slowly. The trail is barely a path. It was very rocky. I went from trail marker to trail marker. I had to climb some too. The wind was very gusty. I got there and the trees provided shade but the wind was channeled directly through them. So no tent tonight. I tried to cowboy camp and hide behind a tree. Only about 7 miles or until about 8 AM tomorrow to get to Justin. I can do this. Hopefully nothing will blow away overnight.
