July 11th, 2016
Miles Hiked: 23 + 1.5 to town
Start Location: Mile 1172
End Location: Mile 1195
End Location GPS: 39.56628, -120.63565
Good miles today on a gradual decent for much of the day towards Sierra City. The mountains are surely changing now. They are lower and roll and the forests have become bigger and more dense. The water has also been drier and further from each source, a far cry from earlier, where it was literally only ever 2 miles apart.
We got into Sierra City around 6. It is a very small town with only a few restaurants and a general store. We are camped at the small church in town, which opens their side yard up to hikers on everyday except Sunday.
There are about 12 other hikers here. It seems as though the crowds have thinned since the beginning. People have quit or got injured and generally everyone is spread out all along the trail. It is better now than with huge crowds.
We will head back out tomorrow. We have become increasingly serious about keeping our miles up. The terrain is now much easier again as the Sierrra and snow are behind us and the ups and downs are much smaller and maneagable. We need to average roughly 17 miles a day to finish before October, which is an important time frame as weather could get nasty in northern Washington (snow, cold temps, etc). If we keep doing 20+ that will be a good daily mileage target to meet our goals.
