It rained on and off all night last night. I hiked with Airplane Mode this morning for the first 10 miles or so. 

Airplane and I walked past Morrison Lake which I promised to take pictures of for my friend with the same name. This is a popular fishing lake with the locals and a dirt road allows access.

I was enjoying our conversation and was going a bit faster than I really wanted to in order to keep up with her. To my disappointment I suddenly got that familiar feeling of new blisters forming. Ugh. This is what happens when you don’t hike at your own pace.  We had a snack with Ungerwear and Gnome and sat in the sun for a little.  When it was time to move on I let them go ahead and hobbled along at my own much slower pace. They go a bit faster than me and I’m just going to mess myself up worse trying to keep up.

Today I discovered that sometimes the CDT has no trail. Absolutely none. We were doing high ridge walks when the trail just disappeared in the meadow grass.  It was like this for miles.  You had to constantly have Guthooks open so you could see where to go, and the uneven grass was killing my feet and ankle.  

I started climbing a very steep hillside to an exposed ridge just when a severe lightening storm started up.  It was getting worse, so I decided to hole up in some trees and wait it out.  While in the shelter of the forest I figured I might as well go to the bathroom.  I was sitting there on a log doing my thing when it started hailing.  Then really hard hail.  I decided to clean up but the TP was getting wet and coming apart. Argh!  I finally finished but not without getting quite wet.

The storm soon passed and I headed up the hill only to find Gaucho in front of me.  He had also holed up in some different trees on the other side of the meadow.  We hiked the rest of the day together to a nice campsite next to a babbling stream.