Day 12

15 miles

At some point last night, we both woke up to the sounds of an animal nearby, but didn’t realize what it was until the skunk smell wafted into our tent. Thankfully, it dissipated fairly quickly. We got up and on trail around 6:45. As usual, the morning has the best temps for hiking. We did 5 to our water source, which was a shallow pool in a tiny stream. We made it work though, and pressed on to lunch, 7 miles. Hunkered under a bush and intermittently napping and eating, we got back on trail around 2:30. Made it to Mary’s Hiker Oasis, which is aptly named. Mary is the most generous host. She cooked us big, healthy burritos, gave us a can of root beer, and a slice of pie with yogurt. Not to mention she has picnic tables under a shade, a hand-washing station, a little free library, free post cards she’ll send out for us, and, best of all, a giant water tank that we can use. Mary does this all for free, wouldn’t even accept a donation. Many thanks to Mary at mile 145.5! The trail angels out here are incredible. We headed back out feeling great and knew we only had to go another mile or so to find a campsite.