Friday April 25, 8.5mi/13.7km

Hwy 62 (214.0/1680ft) to Sheephole Tan Hill (222.5/2780ft) (CA)

I woke up at my usual 6:15am, even though I was in a hotel room. My camping sleep schedule persists even in town. I took a second bonus shower, packed my resupply food, and repaired my tent zipper with the new zipper sliders that I got from Tarptent yesterday.

I ate my first breakfast of the day in the hotel room, which consisted of microwaved Totino’s pizza rolls and a pint of Moose Tracks. Because it’s April 25th, Miss Congeniality was on TV.

I finally left the motel room just before checkout time at 11am, and went back into town to eat 2nd breakfast at a little cafe. After some internet chores, I made my way over to McDonald’s for a milkshake and to wait for my Uber to take me back to the trail. It’s a tiny town, but on Fridays and weekends there’s actually 4 Uber drivers active, and I was easily able to snag one of them. After a 35-minute drive I was back on trail.

It was almost 1pm but the weather was quite cool today so it was enjoyable walking across the sunny washes.

It was mostly easy mindless walking with lots of quiet scenery around me. I did stumble upon a fascinating surprise. a tortoise shell!

It seemed like he had been dead a long time as it was just the shell. I couldn’t figure out how the tortoise died, maybe it drowned when a flash flood came down the wash? I’m not sure how long they usually live either. There was another little shell piece nearby.

I continued up various sandy washes, gradually trending uphill all afternoon.

As I gained elevation it got windier and so I started to look for a sheltered campsite. I found a nice little spot tucked in behind some catclaw and creosote bushes in a nice soft gravelly wash.