Four-thirty, and the sun has already gone down in my little part of the forest. And I am camped on a ridge so that I can catch the last and first of the light.
This section of the trail is considered ‘dry,’ so people sometimes cache water for this part of the hike. Because of the lack of water, I opted to hike this section first, carrying several pounds of extra weight in water. However, I found a small spring, whose output crossed the trail. It wasn’t a big spring, but it was running well enough that I didn’t have to be careful with my water overnight to save some for the next day’s hike. I crossed the spring and hiked a bit further to check for good spots to camp. Not finding anything I fancied, I doubled back to the spring and decided I’d camp on the ridge directly above it. Backtracking a bit more, I noticed an old disused road running up the side of the ridge. It wasn’t marked on the latest USGS Topo, but I found it marked on a 1930s map when I got home. The road/trail made it easy to get up the ridge aways. Then, I just had to pick a couple of trees (there’s always that Goldilocks challenge of looking for a pair of trees that are ‘Just right’).
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