Into the Night (yet again) - Mile 1062.4 - 7/21

So after an incident free night of sleep the plan was to get up early and hike twenty five miles. Well as you can guess plans never hold up. After hiking in late and the animal incident, I got up rather late and pancakes were on my mind. Good thing I bought bisquick and syrup! Got the fire going and the batter made. Spins used the lid of her pan and was in charge of the pancake making (mainly because my attempts at making them were less than successful). We could only make one at a time so it was quite a morning activity, but they turned out really tasty and was worth it.

Hiking out late pretty much destroyed the plan of doing 25 today but over twenty was still within reach. The morning was uphill and steady but the area was created through volcano activity so the landscape was absolutely beautiful. That also brought in a good concentration of dayhikers, everywhere so I knew that there was a highway somewhere. Sure enough, highway four was around halfway through the day and I ate my lunch by the road as the cars and motorcycles flew around the curves. Still no sign of Typo or Wolverine but I figured that I might catch them late today or tomorrow morning. A few hundred yards from where I ate lunch was a cooler with trail magic fully stocked with cupcakes and fruit...jackpot! It was nice to have some fresh fruit and there was also a trail register. Inside, it showed that Typo had been here three hours earlier. The race was on, only three hours back meant we'd definitely run into him later today or early tomorrow. The rest of the day was bumpy and rocky and sure enough it began to get dark once again...back on with the headlamps...hopefully no green eyes tonight. We went down into a dense forest and it got really dark but the campsite was right ahead and as usual dinner cooked over a big fire. As I was breaking logs there was a loud growling noise and Spins and I looked at each other thinking shit not again, two strait nights of animals. We heard it again followed by a grumbling yelling, phew only dogs. Easier to sleep tonight knowing it's only dogs.