Miles: 20.4 

Total Trail Miles: 652.5 

Ascent/Descent: 3147/3417 ft 

Start Time: 05:20 

End Time: 13:30 

Temperature: 27°C (81°F)

I started hiking early at 5:20 as we had a big climb first thing, over 1660ft of elevation gain in 4 miles. It was a cool climb though, it felt like we were climbing over a mountain. The early morning sky was beautiful and pink and despite the hard climb I was feeling good. As I summited the mountain as soon as you passed over the top you could see the snowy Sierra in the distance, waiting there for us, the next big challenge. I couldn't help but have a big grin plastered to my face as I thought "we are coming for you", I caught eyes with Tense was was sat on a rock at the top and he had the same grin and was thinking the same thing. The descent down the other side was into trees and the next stretch was undulating trail, up and down, in and out of trees, until a 2 miles dirt road walk section which felt brutal and I was ready to arrive at the steam at this point, I took a little break there but wanted to try and make it to camp early afternoon so I could test there as we had been arriving so late the last few days. I pushed on in the heat and by back and hips were a little sore from this whole section. After a little more ascent for a couple of miles in was all downhill soo went quicker. I didn't quite make it down for lunch, hunger getting the better of me at 12:30 and I sat down to have a wrap before finishing the last section and arriving around 1:30. I was the first to arrive and joined Brolly and a couple of other hikers at the picnic table. I then ventured down to the pipe for water to wash my socks and hiking clothes, it was pretty gross water so they didn't really get clean. We spent the afternoon lazing in the shade under a tree before having dinner and playing some cards before bed.