Thurs. June 9     Miles today: 26.5     Total so far: 505.1

We were up at 5:00 am today, and so was the jolly ranger!  We could hear him laughing and talking with his ranger friend as they got ready for THEIR day.  Our first “job” was the stiff climb out of Green Valley, up over the top, and down into Elizabeth Lake Canyon.  At the bottom of the canyon, near the creek, it was like a green jungle of oak trees, wild grape vines and flowers.  But once we crossed the creek, it was the beginning of the long, long climb of Liebre Mountain, which took us the rest of the day.

With the two new trek poles, and a good nights rest, I was hiking faster than I thought, and this actually turned out to be a problem, because we ended up bypassing an important spring where we’d planned to get water.  We roughly calculate our mileage by knowing how long it takes to cover a mile, and I thought, “This COULDN’T be the spring–we’re here too soon!”  Well, it WAS the spring, and by the time we realized our mistake, we didn’t want to go all the way back, and it made our water situation for much of the day pretty tough (we had 10 miles of uphill climb to the next “water hole”).

Looking down at Lake Hughes

Up and up we went until we could see Lake Hughes–the PCT used to go that way.  We kind of wish it still did.  We like lakes!  On the other side of the valley, there was a sort of “tidal wave effect”–thick clouds spilling over the mountaintops.  We wondered what that might mean in connection with our weather up ahead. 

 In the afternoon, we got to have a little celebration–we reached the FIVE HUNDRED MILE MARK!  Somebody even “wrote” it with rocks on the trail.  Hurray!  I took a picture standing by the “mark” to show the view you get from there.  We hiked on, very excited and happy, and finally reached Liebre Mountain Truck Trail where we found a “first”–instead of a cache for PEOPLE, it was a trail cache for HORSES: two full water buckets, and a flake of alfalfa!  Awwwwww!

By then, we were two very tired hikers, and shortly past the Truck Trail, we found a flat place among the oak trees and stopped.  The wind had really started howling,we were at 5,500 feet elevation, the temperature was 55 degrees, and getting colder.  Brrr!  We zoomed into our silk longjohns that we sleep in and got into our sleeping bags FAST!  But between listening to the wind and being excited about finishing 500 miles, it was awhile before I fell asleep.  I love this trail!  Every day is some new adventure!