Day 20 – Saturday 8/1/2020 – 1595.6 – clear, cool, clouds in afternoon, no rain, but threatening. I woke at 4:45 am and was on trail at 5:35 am. I started wearing my down vest, but quickly took it off. I was too hot. The climbs were very tough. They were about 2500’ straight up. I did lots of counting to 25 steps with pauses to catch breath. I went from pole/cairn to pole/cairn straight up the side of mountain through grass, scrub brush and rocks. It was very very hard, slow and exhausting. However, I saw wonderful views though. I summited Parkview mountain around 10:45 am. Then it was very long descent on a knife edge and switchbacks. I started to get hot with the sun beating down. It took forever to get to my next water, but there was no place to put up my tent. I hiked on but rain clouds looked threatening so tossed down my tent on a slope. Ugh! And then it never rained but I’m here and settled. After resting a bit I walked back to get more water. I sweated a lot today. Now I’m sitting in my tent chillin’.
