Total Trail Miles: 226.2

Ascent/Descent: 3872/2091 ft

Start Time: 07:25

End Time: 16:00

Temperature: 27°C (81) 

Despite getting woken up by the load trains throughout the night I slept very well at Nitsy's and woke after 6 feeling well rested. We packed up and Nitsy gave us a lift back to the trail head at 7 ish so we were back on trail by 7:30. It already felt hot which wasn't a good sign as we knew we had a fair bit of ascent today. The first section was beautiful though walking through what felt like a meadow of yellow flowers, a bit like a rape field in england but on a mountain. The views were incredible too, with snowy San Jacinto one side of us and snowy San Gorgonio the other. We took lots of little breaks throughout the day to break from the heart and fill up water were we could. The day was made headed by how heavy our packs were from the resupply and 3 litre water carry, hiker hunger has definitely set in now so the amount of food we need to carry has increased. I weighed by bag at Nitsys with the food and water and it was 14.3kg. 

We had our first big water crossing today, crossing whitewater river at red dome. We got there just before midday and cooled off in the river before crossing. It was only knee deep but the current was really strong and it required careful manoeuvring, once we all made it across and filled up our water we went to sell out some shade for a long lunch whilst we waited out the hottest part of the day. The wasn't much shade to be found so we created some using my groundsheet, trekking poles and a bush and sat there until 2. We just had 6 more miles to go until camp but it was slow and hot. I arrived around 4 and we all set up our tents next to the river. We cooled our feet and had our usual evening routine. Laura from Nitsys the night before joined us for dinner too. Bed by 7