Dutch meadow and spring to rock creek camp - 17.4 miles

Total - 761.1 miles

Woke up to everything soaked. Before I fell asleep everything was pretty dry after the rain storms but the condensation drowned my rain fly. It was cold too so it was a pain to unravel and then put on the outside of my backpack to hopefully not get everything else soaked. Dad did cold coffee and oatmeal bc we only have one small fuel can and I think it’s leaking when I don’t have my pocket rocket stove on it. The valve is fucked up I think so I need to get a new one. I was freezing and wanted to hit the trail so we started the long gradual climb up to our first alpine lake! It was about 8 miles up which sucked. Still getting used to the altitude so I’m sucking air even when I’m going slower. We had incredible views of the sierras all snow topped and gorgeous. Every mile we had to ask ourselves which one was Whitney and everytime no one knew. We saw two marmots chillin on some rocks right before chicken spring lake. As we were heading up, a hiker going SOBO showed up in the horizon and I immediately recognized him as uncivilized. He had gone up to lone pine as he had a stomach bug and now was making his way back to meet Klara to hike the rest of the sierras with her as she is nervous for the passes. We had offered as dad has a lot of experience but uncivilized does too so she is going to stick with him! It made me feel reassured as I was starting to worry about her as we all know she can do the passes but I wanted her to feel safe and ease her anxiety about it. Glad he was going to help. We then came up to chicken spring lake and we’re immediately met with amazing views of Rocky too shale mountains with snow highlighting its peaks. The water was still and clear sparkling in the sun. We met a guy who swam out to the middle of the lake, but he was stating he was having difficulty with the altitude and wasn’t feeling energetic so he was heading down to lone pine to re-evaluate and maybe skip the sierras. That didn’t make any sense to me as it takes awhile to adjust to altitude and why would you leave in the first 4 days because he wasn’t feeling energized enough. I’m being a hater right now but the mindset seemed off. I am personally not feeling that enthusiastic about all the elevation but I know the views are worth all my suffering. We hung out around chicken spring lake for just over an hour, relaxing and fighting off the too friendly chickmunks. We saw another marmot walk to the water which was adorable. Wish I could just hug those lil guys. Then we made the last climb before we headed down down down. Brutal on the knees. After 12pm I feel so lethargic and eepy. I could use a mid day nap now while in the desert it felt like I could go go go go and never stop. The second half of the day I usually just can’t wait to be done and in my tent going to bed. We did see a couple more marmots which were always exciting. I think our count was 6 today. I kept trying to do their call which I think I nailed personally. Definitely America’s got talent worthy. We got to camp around 3:30 and I immediately washed my feet. My feet are fucking disgusting. If you had tripophobia you would scream bloody murder as I have holes on every inch of my soles and balls of my feet. Dirt gets stuck in it too and it’s nasty. I’m about to lose both my pinky toe nails and my left ring toe nail as I have stubbed it way too many times and it’s become red bc of the blood pooling under my nail. I’m shedding dead skin everywhere and I have so much discoloring that you would think I am a mutant. My toe nails are filled to the brine with black dirt. So I did a lil cleaning and tried to tidy up as best I can for tomorrow where I get it all nasty again. 4:30 hits and I’m like fuck it let’s make dinner. I chose a knorr rice side and I I think I have hit my limit with my first food on trail. I haven’t even had that many of those bitches and I’m mechanically trying to chew so I don’t throw up the rice side. It took me probably close to an hour to finish the cup of rice. I had two burritos with Cajun style chicken flavored knorr rice with deli style tuna (first mistake) and then after two burritos and lots of gagging later I finished the last half just out of the pot. At this point it’s the texture where the rice and pasta have the same texture that makes me gag. I can’t do it anymore. I’m broken. Dad ate my favorite meal of mash potatoes mixed with chili soup. So so so so good on trail and so easy to stomach. We were in bed by 5:45. Well I’m going to listen to my audio book plus I had to write this. I don’t plan on falling asleep anytime soon. Tomorrow is going to suck ass and the day after is as well. So much elevation over so little miles. I never thought I would say this but I kinda miss the desert. It’s like I’m restarting again. The desert felt almost like a comfort zone where I was so used to it and now the sierras are pushing me outside my comfort zone which is scary. The views though are so incredible that it is worth the suffering. Hopefully at least. We are only 60ish miles into the sierras. Technically it really started after lone pine so we are 10 miles into it.

Also just noticed my rain fly now has a small hole in it. God-fucking-dammit.