Miles: 17.5 

Total Trail Miles: 1154.5 

Ascent/Descent: 3347/3715 ft 

Start Time: 08:08 

End Time: 19:32 

Temperature: 27°C (81°F)

We started late this morning after a bit of an emotional morning with me worrying that Marcus wasn't having a nice holiday and him worrying that he was holding me back from making progress on my hike. But as the day went on we managed to walk it off and start to both feel much better. We had lots more ridge walking today which was really beautiful and we took more breaks and had a pretty chilled morning. We booked an air bnb for Truckee when we had a bit of signal on a morning break, picking somewhere a little more comfortable after the kinda gross Paradice Motel experience. We realised that where we were planning to camp (15miles) was just 2 miles from Donnor Ski Ranch where we could get a meal, free beer (2 pints of 8% hurricane for PCT hikers). This made us very tempted to crack it another bigger mile day, what sealed the deal was when we got a text from Shortcut to say she was there. We were both on board to get those extra miles in. The last stretch has some frustrating snow traverses, one of which we avoided by hiking straight up to a ridge line where a ski lift was and then going back down the other side to join the trail. The last mile was super rocky switchbacks which was tiring on our feet so we were really happy when we hit the road and rocked up at the ranch. We ordered dinner at the bar, got our free beer and caught up with Shortcut. It was a really nice evening and before we knew it it was gone 9pn and dark outside. Shortcut was ment to be hiking on s mile to camp as she didn't want to pay the $40 dorm fee but there was a pretty creepy guy that has been chatting to her lingering around and it was late so we told her she could sneak into our dorm and stay on the floor as we had been told there was no one else in our dorm. There ended up being a double bed in the dorm which ment me and Marcus could share that and shortcut could take a bunk bed. We showered and went to sleep a little merry after a good day.