July 14, 2016

I spent the morning repackaging my food and cramming it all into the bear canister. After that I had to figure out how to make the bear canister fit into my backpack along with everything else.

We left around 10:00am and I spent a bit more time working on Clearinghouse on the way up. Just before noon we stopped at a burger place to have lunch with Suzanne's son, Eric. He works at an engineering and stress testing firm and we got a quick tour of the office before getting back on the road. It was my sister Maya's birthday and I spent most of the rest of the ride talking with her.

We arrived at the trailhead just after 2:00pm. Two nobos were heading into town and I said a quick hello to them, checking on the trail conditions to the south. After applying sunscreen and taking one last look around the car to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything I said my goodbyes and posed with Stu for a photo at the trailhead before hiking out.

The first few hours I hiked alone. After almost two weeks of sedentary coding it took a little bit to get back in touch with listening to my body and becoming fluid with my trail routines. This was interrupted early evening when I ran into Listen and Squirrel, two women I had hiked with on the AT! We stopped to talk and catch up for almost 20 minutes before each continuing on our own ways. I camped in a small cluster of evergreens next to a small stream.