I woke up to blessed silence, my hopes for a mosquito-light day intact. That lasted about two minutes, during which time the mosquitoes noticed that I was not an inanimate object and in fact, a delightful treat pumped full of poptarts and candy. There were about thirty of them buzzing at the mesh of my tent, waiting for me to emerge. I was filming that day for my “Day in the Life” video (to watch, look at last blog post). I decided to count my mosquito kills for the day. We walked through beautiful green meadows and past lakes over Dorothy Lake Pass, where we took a break and I ate one of my packaged cakes, a new variety added to my resupply. Some of the best and worst variety comes from limited selection and that was definitely the case of this last resupply stop.

I took advantage of the fact that we were stationary and boosted my kill count to almost 200. We planned seven more miles before lunch, which included two creek crossings. One crossing was a bit sketchy. It wasn’t very deep water, but the log over the water was pretty thin, wobbly, and higher in the air, maybe four feet. Tinkle and Daisy chose to use their Crocs, so while they changed back into their shoes, I helpfully smacked the mosquitoes on their backs and heads. Soon after, we hit 1000 miles! We attempted a synchronized jumping picture, but after many, many attempts, decided to lay down and take naps instead.

That afternoon, the landscape started to change. The mountains took on a brownish hue and were covered in green. The sky was filled with puffy, white clouds, something I realized we hadn’t seen up until that point at all in the Sierra and rarely in the desert. We had planned a relatively short day, about 16 miles, so got to camp early. In the tent site, I noticed some toilet paper on the ground. This is unfortunately not a rare occurrence, especially as near to civilization as we were. What is rarer, is finding actual poop. In this tent site, there was a large piece of human excrement with a bare dusting of dirt over it and not even a semblance of a hole attempted underneath it. I wasn’t going to give up this choice spot for that. I think my experience as a nurse prepared me for a lot of things on trail, but I didn’t expect to be encountering this particular situation. Daisy and I transferred this to a hole we dug (using a stick and rock) and Tinkle and I set up there. I will spare any readers the lecture I would have given the culprit of this heinous crime, but for anyone interested in backcountry camping, hiking, or other outdoor activity: LEAVE NO TRACE. If you gotta poop, and we all do, bury it at least 6 inches deep and pack out your TP.

That night, we made a fire, a pretty rare occasion, and made a drum circle with our bear cans. It was our last night in bear can-required land and we wanted to celebrate. The next day would bring resupply and good food, so we were able to pig out on the last of our food. When I crawled into my tent, my kill count stood at 327.