Dad and I spent one full day at Kick Off. We took lots of classes and learned about trail conditions, water availability, hiking thru snow and water, and about how awesome bears are. We met lots of people, including Helicopter, a thru-hiker from my hometown of Dallas, OR whose blog we followed last year. There's a picture below of the feed line for dinner.
Dad saw "Dr Sole" who treated his feet without any outward appearance of shock. He used a gel made for horses on his feet and they seem to be doing well today...other than the fact that they are filthy!
We've had a decent amount of climbing today and it's been pretty warm. There was a short side trail down to a creek where we saw a hiker strip down to his shorts to lay in the water. We were debating joining him, and then the shorts came off. I didn't figure he would want to share the creek with someone who might remind him of his mother so we hiked on.
At a rest break with water and shade (ahhhhhhhh), we discovered that dad's water bladder in his pack was leaking. Everything appeared dry. It wasn't until we made camp later in the day we found out his sleeping bag had taken on water. That's the worst thing that can happen to a down bag. Thankfully it was mostly on the outside of the bag and it was a very warm night.
We pushed on a little further than our 12-mile goal because we reached it so early in the day. The new goal we set was a dry campsite (no water source) we read about near an oak tree. Some people had passed us on the trail and we hoped they weren't all planning the same thing as us. We were pretty happy when we saw the oak tree...and even happier when we saw no one had set up a tent! Shortly after we arrived we were joined by five others. It's a small site so were crammed in pretty tight.
Not a good night of sleep for either of us. I'm hoping that all but guarantees a good one tonite. We're just six miles from the small town of Mt Laguna. There's a cold Coke there with my name on it!
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