Once again, the trail is faint and frequently blocked with debris. We navigate to The Knob pretty well, but then the trail just follows along a ridge with few navigational clues to watch for, such as creeks, junctions or turns. The area has been burned, and the trail is mostly obliterated and frequently missing. Again we find ourselves walking on a side slope, testing our ankles. We are fully exposed to the sun and 100F heat, scrambling up and down along the ridge. WILDCAT is frequently stopping to rest.
I like to follow navigational clues and stay found. I'm nervous just hiking blindly. The trail just doesn't seem right, so eventually, I flip on the GPS. Sure enough, we are 2.5 miles off-trail, climbing up Lazyman Butte. We are already tired, drinking up our precious water, and now we need to go back 2.5 miles. The trail is so obscure that even in the areas in which we found it before, we cannot locate it now, and vice-versa. We make it back to The Knob, flip on the GPS and search for our trail. After crashing around in the brush for a while, we find faint signs of the trail.
We have made just one mile of progress with seven hours of strenuous hiking. I'm worried about the implications. First, this section will now be five days long, not the planned four. It might even be six We have sufficient food, but the concern is that Fran will be stuck at a road junction for two days. Even more concerning, WILDCAT has a fixed completion date and airplane to catch. At this pace, we will not finish the trail.
Despite being low on water, we need to keep pushing. The map shows a tarn on the trail that might provide water. In the Sierras, a tarn is small alpine lake nestled in a granite bowl, with incredible cold, clear water, so that's what we both picture. Instead, this tarn is a murky pond ten foot across. Yuk. We take a liter each and treat it. A couple of miles later we reach Robinson Creek with excellent cold water, and with great joy, we dump out the tarn water and restock with ample cold fresh aqua. Neither of us usually treats our water. Instead, we seek out springs and cold clear creeks such as this one with excellent, safe water.
Stripped to our shorts, we rinse off our bodies and our clothes. A bath and laundry! Gorgeous orange lilies line the creek, and we are careful not to trample them.
We hiked ten hard miles to get five. But we are getting better at trail finding. We now categorize trail as "imaginary trail", "possible trail", and "faint trail". The latter is indeed very exciting to find. We haven't found a use for the term "good trail" yet, and sometimes our "possible trails" turn into game trails.
In some perverse way, I'm really enjoying the navigational challenge.
Five miles to Robinson Creek, total 17
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