Ants are the coolest! By the time I woke up, the ants had carried away the rest of the spilled ramen in the night. 

The morning began with an extremely well graded 10 mile switch backed climb out of the valley. Back and forth we went until reaching the summit. 

At the bottom of the descent waited the 2nd most intense river crossing of the hike. The river sounded and looked more difficult than it actually ended up being and we were safe across. 

We saw 4 Southbound (SOBO) PCT hikers waiting at the river. Yesterday we only saw one SOBO’er but today we saw around 15-20. For most, we were the first Northbound (NOBO) they’d seen (although one guy, Smash, reached the border last week) and they were amazed we were this far. 

The last SOBO’ers we saw had packed out two pizzas from town and offered us a slice -- it was delicious!!

Today was more breathtaking views. I hit a major wall for about 30 minutes today. I blame the 17,000 ft of elevation gain over the last 2 days (9,000 today!). I was able to push past the wall to make it to our planned campsite. 

Miles: 34.9

Total Miles: 2,561