Oron to Small Crater
After a night filled with the sounds of a factory and honking cars we got up and walked next to the road to where we had been dropped off yesterday. We walked passed the watering hole again, deciding it was too muddy to get anything clean and kept walking into the valley.
To get to the valley floor we climbed down a bunch of rungs and a ladder. Its funny. I feel safer hanging onto one of those going straight down than I do standing on my own two feet going down a slight decline. Its probably mostly because of the little pebbles that keep threatening to roll me off the trail tumbling to my demise. Baby steps is as fast as I will go. Sorry to who ever is behind me.
We ended the day right next to a military base at a Night Camp that sits at the top of the Small Crater that we will descend into tomorrow.
There was a water spigot up by the military base entrance that hikers were welcome to use. N tried to use it to clean his clothing but it didn't really work. The fact that all of the clothing he brought with him was already dirty is beyond me still. A former PCT hiker was also there getting water before heading back onto trail (not respecting the NC only camping rule). While we were up there filling our water bottles, our hiking companion R went to the actual gate and asked the people inside to give him food. We ended up walking back to the campsite with a box of cereal, a bunch of cans of olives, pickles and a few packages of some kind of dessert bread stuff. A thinks we picked the right group to team up with.
The NC was a bit crowded towards the end of the day when a few platoons set up camp after finishing some drills. They were friendly and offered us some of their left over meals so the rest of the group ate pretty well tonight.
A little too well if you ask me. When S was trying to share something with me a cup of soup spilt all over our sleeping pads (tear rolls down cheek). I spent the rest of the night cleaning up and trying to dry out my sleeping bag that had also been contaminated.
N was having a really rough time with the heat and started to have nose bleeds which did not help the matter of him enjoying himself.