21st May 2025

By 8am I was a furnace. The sun was barely up, at its least powerful, yet it contributed to the mess of sweat and fatigue I was. It doesn’t help that we’d been climbing most of the morning and carrying 4L of water each. We’d been weaving up and down over several valleys since leaving Aqua Dulce. While we all felt better today mentally, the toll of valley climbing alongside a change to our sleep patterns to avoid the midday heat was beginning to take its toll. 

Again we found ourselves moving through old burn zone. Scorched trees doubled up for giant charcoal sticks. Their gnarled branches drawing lines of black on my pack from where I poorly menoveted around them. Below the dead trees were a thick green band of new life. Wild flowers provide a break to the homogeneous greenery and butterflies merrily bounce from flower to flower. Here in the old burn zone, poodle dog bush thrives, it’s beauty deceptive to the allergic reaction that it famously causes. I underestimated the mental toll of constant vigilance of its leaves.

In a wildflower meadow at the top of a pass, we found a water tank whereby a tin roof collects water and funnels it into the tank. The water line is shallow and the opening to collect the water is small meaning we had to be creative with our method of collection. We attacked a carabiner onto the hand loop of a trekking pole, then connected a water bladder. To keep the bladder open we used a stick and then proceeded to lower it into the tank, successfully bringing up about 1.5L of water. As the tank was under the shade of the tin roof we had a siesta here. 

In the early evening we moved on, up another valley as the heat began to dwindle. We passed the 500 mile marker, took another treacherous journey through the poodle dog bush infested trail, and arrived at our camp for the night. Another cistern on a hill side.