Day 3

Miles: 13
Total: 36

Today was another slow moving day. About half of the time I spent walking across snow, a quarter was spent walking across boggy marshes, and another quarter was spent walking in scrubby desert. The elevation change is still nagging me--sometimes I feel like I can't walk more than 50 feet without having to take a break and catch my breath. But I'll still take that over the snowy mountain passes. I knew this would be hard before I started, but I didn't think it would be hard 100% of the time. Hopefully my body catches up soon.

At about 1:30 two guys in their 50s passed me--Bones and Reboot--and then at about 3:30 I caught up to them. To both of our surprise. They were talking to a day hiking couple, and when the woman heard I didn't yet have a trail name, she said it should be Easter Egg--because I was wearing different combinations of bright yellow and pink. As we walked away from them, the guys told me that it's traditional you get your name from another hiker, and when they heard where I was headed, Reboot started calling me Seattle.

They seemed like really friendly guys, so I decided to stick with them as long as I could. We started going through a flatter desert portion of the trail just as another storm started to roll through, and as we were the tallest things around, booked it another 3 miles in the not too heavy rain to a better camping spot. They have both been hiking since Campo, and met each other on the trail. They told me that this section is the hardest portion of the trail (besides the Sierra's), and that they think I'm doing pretty well for having just started in this section. But I felt like they might have been playing the 'supportive father figure' role. I'll take it.

When they heard that I haven't been able to use my stove, Reboot made us all hot chocolate and said I could use his stove to heat up my food! It was the first day I've actually felt hungry, so both were quite a treat. Another guy (Camvoyage) walked into our area and decided to camp there and wait out the storm, too. We all talked a little bit--sharing stories, and them sharing trail wisdom, and then went to bed about 8. Reboot gave me one of his baselayer shirts because I said I have been sleeping cold because I hadn't expected the snow and colder temps. This helped a little, but I still didn't get much sleep. They headed out on the trail around 6, and when I tried to give the shirt back, he said to keep it and consider it Trail Magic. :)