Still cold last night - brr 🥶

Slow start - rolled down sandy boulder paths.

Can hear the rush of a river but can’t see it yet…

Beautiful Big pines and the river rolling and rushing and making mini waterfalls as we walk. We skirt the river all morning - sometimes crossing.

We crossed once by leaping from rock to rock. Once from rock to log, and just balancing on a log, sometimes you can simply hop across, once the shoes needed to come off to walk across the sugar soft sandy bottom to get to the other side.

Plimps (pinecone blimps) can be found sometimes bigger than your head!

Great Big bridge across the river - navigated to the shoreline for lunch and back up to cross and continue on our way.

Many downed trees again - under and over a few.

The trail follows and slowly climbs and descends the mountainside following the river. Wildflowers dot the trail.

MILE 300**

Sometimes the trail is sketchy and very narrow - the width of a foot with a steep drop off the side - not loving it. Slow - steady - three points of contact at all times.

Finally reached a valley of sorts and the Deep Creek Hot Springs. Setup tents, filtered water, ate dinner. Went in soaked in two separate hot springs with Devon (clothing optional - we saw two fully nude dudes) (one at the river and one up in the side of a rock pile).

Devon went to bed - I stayed up in the river hot spring soaking my feet in the hot spring and then cold river water. Some stars - but moon is almost full (?) and very bright 😎.

My tent was setup on a slant (best space I could find) and I kept sliding off my sleeping pad - to compensate I used my backpack as a bolster to hold me in place on my sleeping pad (spooned with my backpack).