Day 52 (25 June)

Miles 725.0 to 743.0. Forestcamp to Dutch Meadow camp

Today we decide to sleep a little longer and give the others a chance to catch up. It‘s Wizard‘s birthday tomorrow and we want to spend it with her. Guess who wakes us up at 6am! It‘s Wizard! She‘s sitting in front of our tent, packed up in warm clothing, but she looks really tired as she tells us that she had hiked until 10pm last night hoping to catch us. And it turns out she only slept a couple of meters away! While we get ready she cooks herself a pasta breakfast and then off we are into another beautiful day! The first part is downhill and easy. Whenever we reach a creek we have to hurry because we are being eaten alive by mozzies. It‘s so cruel! We stop at one of the creeks, immediately put up our mosquito headnets and spray ourselves with 100% deet. Deadly on your skin, deadly for all mozzies. And have breakfast. We seem to be hiking in a small bubble with others hikers we have come to know well and somehow we all gather at this creek. There‘s a hikerfam with Big Bro from Germany, Pip from the UK, Croc from the US and Minji from South Korea. And another trailfamily with Sara from New Zealand, Lionel aka Potluck from Australia and Songbird and Jefe from the US. What an awesome bunch of people!

We will probably see them all again for lunch because there is a viewpoint in the middle of nowhere overlooking Owen‘s Valley with AT&T service! And we haven‘t had reception in ages and are all so excited!!!

Unfortunately now is also the time to say goodbye to Simon who will leave the trail today via Lone Pine and get some wilderness permits. We really hope to meet up with himmin Bishop!

When we finally reach the cell service spot after a pretty steep uphill climb we get rid of our packs, lie down and check the internet. Call home. Answer texts. Update our blog etc etc etc. Our 2h lunchbreak is soon over and we hurriedly put some snacks in our mouths and get going again. We still have 8 miles to reach our designated tentsite for the night. From there we only have like 7 miles to do in the morning until we reach our first mountain lake for Wizard‘s birthday! Dario and I are the first ones to reach the camp, it‘s near a beautiful meadow and we just sit there and take it all in before we finally set up our tent and make dinner. Right when we are about to drift off to sleep the others arrive. They are making a campfire but we can‘t be bothered to get up again and are soon asleep.