When we got up at 5:30am all the firefighters were still asleep but at 6:00 they all got up and left within minutes. We weren’t that fast. By the time we packed all of our stuff it was almost 6:30am. Not too bad though. We planned on doing 24 miles today but also knew plans could change since there were thunderstorms forecasted. Once we hit the trail we met our first SoBo hiker. That means a hiker that started at the Canadian border and goes down to Mexico. Opposite direction than ours. Pretty fast after a month and half but well we should be done in less than two months as well! The day started out nice and sunny with ok temperatures and most of the day we were following a ridge, going in and out of burn zones and also passing a recent one from just a month ago. In the distance we could see some smoke for the first time with a helicopter flying nonstop above us carrying water to put it out. We also sent out our coordinates to get fire info but no fires should be in a close proximity.

After our lunch break we continued and watched a very dark and rainy sky in the distance. We thought we escaped it but another storm was rolling in from the other side. Because we were to continue walking on an exposed ridge we decided to wait for the storm to pass. We used our groundsheets as a shelter but after almost two hours there was no end to the storm. I even got a bit of reception and found out it will last for one more hour. Since we were getting cold we decided to camp nearby and not take that risk. The sky all around us was very dark blue with a lot of rain nearby and thunder. We could find a spot where both our tents could fit and made some warm dinner – ramen in my case. Tomorrow we will start already at 6am and try to catch up on those miles – 9 to be exact (14.4km) – that we couldn’t finish today but better to be safe than sorry. Always.