Day Seven – May 31

WARNER SPRINGS 109.5 TO CAMPSITE HIGH AT COMB'S PEAK PCT MILE 129.2
19.7 Miles

We started hiking at 6:30 this morning and the first few miles followed a beautiful, shaded creek. It was such a treat after the hot, open meadows yesterday afternoon.

We passed through an area that looked like an abandoned hunting camp and after some fast, flat miles we climbed all morning to Lost Valley Spring.

By this point, it was 11 a.m. and we set up the tent in the shade to wait out the heat of the day. Thank goodness for the tent –  the flies were unbelievable!

(Stephen now writing) They buzzed around our tent like we were an aquarium exhibit; instead of water there was a cloud of stench.

Tent time was a treat. I read a few chapters of my David Sedaris book and napped, Kelly mostly napped. We thought the flies might die down over the four hours we were there. They did not.

I scrambled out of the tent and threw my rain pants on and passed Kelly hers for bug defense and proceeded to pack everything up. On the way back to the trail we scooped up four liters of dirty water to filter when we got out of the cloud of flies.

The rest of the day went smoothly and we made it to Mike's place a little before sunset. Mike's has a water tank available for hikers before an 18-mile dry stretch of trail. As we let our gravity filter do it's job we ambled down the hill to Mike's, where we saw a hiker we had seen a few times who was staying the night. He offered us some kettle corn and bananas while we talked trail.

We decided we'd make it a few more miles that night and headed back up to the water tank. We cooked dinner there so we wouldn't have to carry any extra water. Dinner was taco rice with rehydrated chicken and I'll say, as team chef, my finest work yet.

We left with Mike's place with five liters each. A liter of water weighs 2.2 pounds, so the extra 11 pounds was noticeable to say the least (our packs without food or water weigh just a bit more than 13 pounds). We made it three more miles before we set up camp around 10 p.m. on Comb's Peak.