Day 23

22 miles
Chilly in the morning, started hiking in my fleece and eventually my hands warmed up. We took a snack break at a cabin and enjoyed the warmth of the sun. It gave us a chance to dry out our quilts too. A few more miles to lunch, where we ate with a bunch of SOBOers. They all said that there’s a lot of NOBOers lately and we said the same of them. Two bubbles passing each other. In addition, there are SNOBOers, of which there are two kinds: those that flipped to the Canadian border and headed south after the desert, and those that jumped up to Old Station or Chester. Both routes avoided the snowy Sierra. It was wild to hear stories from hikers doing hundreds of miles through the desert on snow or having to ford rivers. We had zero snow and no rivers in the desert. The afternoon was easy hiking, but the last climb to camp was a bit tough. I started listening to one of Al Franken’s books along the way and that’s been enjoyable. Met Panther after the last water stop who seemed thrilled that we were fellow Alaskans (sorta). Tonight we’re sleeping on an old abandoned road.