Tortoise Sighting

April 13, 2023 Day 13

mile 232.2 to 258.7 (26.5 miles)

Our biggest day yet! My new shoes still feel great, my heels just have these terrible blisters that won't go away. Luckily they don't bother me much while hiking. I've been draining them every morning and night and trying to keep them covered with Leukotape.

We got going this morning around 7 am and barely took any breaks today. It was cloudy, beautiful weather until around noon when the blaring sun came out. The miles came easy with less than 500 feet of elevation gain in this section. We stopped for lunch at a cow pond 15 miles in, ate some cereal, I popped and re-dressed my blisters once again, and then we hiked on. Lots of wildlife today- we spotted a hare in the brush, two rattlesnakes- one chased us when we got too close, and our first tortoise near a spring!

The rattlesnakes are a different breed here, east coast rattlers will just lay there and mind their business for the most part but these fuckers are angry.

This section has had so much beautiful wildflowers, I think we're getting close to the super bloom. Kearny tomorrow. The hotel is booked so unsure if we're going to stay at a trail angels home or if we'll just resupply and hike on. 

We skipped a good spring because we planned on filling up water here at camp. Turns out we definitely should have filled up earlier. The water source here is a tiny waterfall coming off of a cliff and was really hard to collect any amount of water without a bunch of sand as well. We're set up in a nice flat spot though so what more could you ask for?