Jammin' with Jameson

18 miles. I finally learned my lesson and got up early at 5:15 am. I had woken up around 3 am and saw the best night sky so far. I stretched and headed out on the 13 miles to get to Walker Pass in time for Swell’s parents to bring us trail magic at 11. We were shaded in the woods for the first 2 hours but the little slivers of sun I felt at 7 am were already intensely hot. We were then rewarded with lovely dirt road walk populated with dirt bikers. I took a break around 9 and hiked the rest with Madeline after she caught up. I had been listening to alternative music all morning and shared my airpods with Madeline to listen to the xx and Arcade Fire for the last bit before Walker Pass. The trail magic was already going at 10:45 when we arrived so I stuffed myself with sandwiches, iced coffee, Kool aid, homemade cookies, and cinnamon buns. I immediately had to sleep and found some shade by a tree and passed out for 2 hours. I got up right as Swell’s parents were leaving and everyone else had either gone into town or found a better shaded tree. I went and joined Cowabunga, Charlie, Madeline, Oyster, Flower Power, and Quick Fix for a mega siesta for a mega hot day. Even around 4 pm I felt extremely low energy, it was scorching hot out, and I couldn’t imagine hiking anytime soon. We finally decided to hike as many miles as we could at 6:30 to get as much of the next 2000 foot climb  out of the way. We all dunked our shirts in a bucket of water and started off climbing the mountain at a fresh clip. Thus ended my longest siesta to date. It was an incredibly beautiful view to walk the ridge line throughout the entire sunset, but as we got to the last confirmed campsite at 8:20 we decided to not go any further and risk our luck not finding any other sides that had as much wind protection on a very windy night. We went to sleep and planned to get up at 4 am the next day for an early start.