Jammin' with Jameson

24.8 miles. I slept great and got up right before 8 am with almost 12 hours of sleep. I was sure everyone had passed me by in the morning and felt dumb for pushing harder the day before just to feel more injured. I made it down to the water cache and had chemistry time with Veto where we had to carefully filter, iodine, and hand sanitize everything we touched at the first water cache. It took almost an hour of careful operation but we were willing to take the precautions to not get sick. Luckily I took some extra water because the next 15 miles turned out to be most desert like section I felt like we had experienced to date. It seemed like we were finally truly in the high Mojave desert and I couldn’t help but take note of the comparisons between the struggling hikers and the endangered California desert tortoise that we passed two signs for. It was a scorching hot day with lots of deep sand that got super annoyed to walk through and a few dotted Joshua trees that were the only refuge from the sun. I paused to check for more electrolytes and dug out the Kool aid packets I had gotten at Hikertown for a future day of shitty water. I screamed out of excitement and was so so happy that I had the forethought that would help out so much on day like this with nasty iodine water. I gave a packet to Josh and put two packets in two liters for myself. The next few hours were grueling and I had to be careful with my water. I didn’t want to take a break in the trees because I already was only on pace to get to the next water cache around 3/3:30 pm. I only made it through with the help of lots of rap courtesy of Kid Cudi and Kanye West. By the time I got to the second water cache, I had decided it was definitely one of the top 3 hardest days so far. I still really enjoyed the views and experience as it truly felt like we were deep in the desert. Everyone was hanging out in the little slivers of shade and again had to do water operation for another 4 liters on the next potentially contaminated site. It was so hot and incredibly difficult to decide when to get up and leave. I started moving around 6 and refilled more water and weighed myself and my pack at the scale that the trail angel had placed there. I did a beautiful climb at sunset and kept hiking another few miles with Charlie to get to our intended campsite with Madeline and Swell. Madeline and I had dinner together in the dark and got some sleep.