I woke up at six, but needed to mail my bivy sack home, so I spent about two hours just sitting. Waiting.

My neighbors called me over. They couldn’t find biking/hiking gloves, but they bought me some fingerless, neoprene, fishing gloves, that were a little too big. Oh well, nice try. Unfortunately, I had already thrown out the old ones. Oops. They were better than nothing.

I was more excited when they said, “Hey, this umbrella blew over here yesterday, is it yours?” That was a happy moment!

By the time the store opened (to mail my package) they were serving breakfast, so I stayed for that, and didn’t leave for the trail until after ten.

It’s been stormy every afternoon for a week or more, and this has meant snow in the Sierra. There is a rumor that someone died on Forester Pass a few days ago. Tons of people are skipping ahead and plan to come back and hike the Sierra section later in the year when it is safer. Lost&Found thinks he might flip.

I decided to keep walking and have a look for myself. I’m not skipping ahead based on rumors and fear. I’ll have a look for myself, thank you very much. But I admit, my mind was filled with doubt as I walked off, especially with my heavy pack. At KM I ditched my bivy bag but added a tent, pile pants, micro-spikes, and a three-pound bear canister. I think my base weight went up about six pounds. That plus six days of food and four liters of water made for a heavy pack. I trudged along watching the thunderheads build and really wondered what I was getting into.

It started raining around 1300, but not too bad. I found a nice campsite around 1730 and stopped. Kind of a short day (14 miles), but I had a late start and a heavy pack, and that’s the mileage I had planned, so everything is good, right?