Total Trail Miles: 286.7

Ascent/Descent: 613/1899 ft

Start Time: 08:45

End Time: 15:25

Temperature: 21°C (70)

We had a 8 am ride to the trail sorted so we're up showering, packing and cleaning the house early. A Physical Therapist Trail Angel called Jessica picked me, Tito, Andrew and Eleanor up (the others had left at 7am) and on the drive to cougar crest trail got chatting about my sun splints and Andrew's bad knee. Jessica made us lie in the boot when we got there and pulled and flexed our feet to help realign them which she said would help, she was super lovely but we were unsure how effective her methods would be as they went against traditional PT teachings but it felt good at the time - I will have to wait till our next significant uphill to test the outcome! This delayed our start a bit but we didn't mind as we wanted a super chill day as we were hoping Christina, Sassy and Conor would soon catch us up. Tito was on more of a mission though and went on ahead. Me, Andrew and Eleanor took a break every 3 miles to chill/eat and at our second stop we all had a beer that we chilled in a patch of snow. It was a mix of snow patches and pine forests and pretty much all downhill so it wasn't a taxing day despite bags full of food (and for me the addition of the ice axe ). We had originally planned to camp at a spot 10 miles in but Eleanor didn't spot me and Andrew there and carried on so we ended up walking an extra mile to catch her up. We ended up with a lovely little campsite by a river though and enjoyed the last few hours of the afternoon. We planned to do our first 20+ mile tomorrow to reach the hot springs so we turned in for bed at 7pm.