March 21, 2021
Mile: 231
The coyotes howled all night long and from all around us, like they were circling us or something. I wasn’t really nervous but it definitely kept us both awake, which kind of sucked.
We reached 4199’ elevation by 9:00am and had some great 360 degree views, followed by lots of hiking at elevation, which was cool. At mile 219 we took a .25 mile detour to Mountain View Tank for water. We’ve got a long, dry stretch ahead of us so we needed to stock up here since the water is plentiful. We had to climb a ladder to dip out bottles into the tank and fill up. It was definitely interesting. We each got 4 liters in preparation for a long, dry hike, only to find a cache of water and some candy just 4 miles up the trail. We topped off our water and decided to take a break, since there were some scraggly trees providing a little shade.
Shortly after we set off again, the trail turned into a dirt service road and we were stopped by a lovely retired couple out joyriding in an ATV. They were very intrigued by thru-hikers and had lots of questions for us which we were happy to answer, but standing still with 8.8 lbs of water on your back is not fun when they sun is beating down on you. As soon as we could manage it without being rude, we bid them farewell and continued hiking. My heel blisters are getting so bad. There are literally new ones forming underneath the old ones that were finally starting to turn to callouses. Ugh.
We passed by Beehive tank and there were a lot of mamma cows and their babies around. We got a few warning looks and snorts from the bigger cows, so we decided we had plenty of water and carried on without stopping, making sure to give all the cows a nice, wide berth.
We camped at mile 231. It’s pretty open here and the wind picked up toward the end of the day, so we put big rocks on top of all our tent stakes. Seriously, my heel blisters hurt so bad. There was a ton of scree today, which certainly didn’t help. And we didn’t see a single other thru-hiker. Again.
All in all, it was a beautiful day but rough.
Sarah Hikes 
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