Day 39 (ODT 7)

Day 39 (ODT 7): 25 miles

I’m not sure I slept for more than 20 consecutive minutes all night. I was constantly waking up cause the tent was flapping or cause my back was hurting since there was a pot hole right under where my back was. I saw the sky starting to glow outside my tent before my alarm even went off at 5, but I was still reluctant to get up cause it was cold af. I sucked it up and packed up quickly to enjoy the sunrise outside my tent. I was constantly running around to try to take pictures and videos of it but more so to move and stay warm. The wind calmed down a little around sunrise but was till strong.

After enjoying that for a while in the cold, I got moving again on Diablo Rim. It was a fun but cold morning. I was glad I stopped where I did last night. I didn’t see a decent campsite for a long time.

Hiking the Diablo Rim really opened my mind to so many more possibilities of hiking. There was no trail up there. There’s just a mountain. Fuck it. Find the summit.

After 5 more miles of cross country on the rim, I made it to a “primitive road.” They take some liberties with the word primitive sometimes haha sometimes it’s a perfectly fine dirt road, and others it’s not. A couple days ago it was just a single cow path that was lined with shit the whole way. This one was okay, it was a rocky road at times, and other times disappeared. Still much better than cross country though. I also saw like 10-15 more wild horses.

I reached another water cache and a real dirt road began. I didn’t need any water but took 1 liter for good measure. After that, I was unintentionally herding cows for a mile along a fence line.

It was then a combination of dirt, gravel, and paved road into Paisley, the first town I stopped in. The last few miles on the paved road were tough. The wind was screaming across the valley and blowing me sideways on the road, but more surprisingly it was causing a bit of a mini sandstorm. I could see the sand blowing around in the distance the day prior and a lot of today, but now I was walking in it. I was surprised that it actually hurt to get hit by sand, but it did.

Ended day at a saloon for pizza & dp. Good ppl