May 26th - Hwy 10 to Mission Creekside Camp

Woke up before dawn - hoping to get some miles in before the heat set in. We knew it was going to be a hot day of hiking. Headed up toward the Wind Farm which was reportedly thru-hiker friendly. We sat down to eat our breakfast at the Wind Farm and discovered ants had taken over our food bags and packs. They were everywhere! Guess our "great" campsite the night before hadn't been so good. We had been infested by ants - and didn't have a clue until it was time for breakfast. Learned a lot about ants - they preferred our salty snacks the most. And who knew they could eat through ziplock bags??? We lost about a 1.5 days of food. After an emotional breakdown by yours truly - we decided to push on - even with the missing food. Tom was able to purchase some frozen sandwiches at the Wind Farm to make up for some of the missed snacks.

We continued on up the hill. The scenery was beautiful - open fields of dry grassy, hillside. I was thankful we were doing this part of the hike early in the morning since there was absolutely no shade whatsoever. Luckily, we finally made it through the dry grassy meadows and descended down into a river bottom. It was the first real river we had seen since starting our trek - it was beautiful. I made a bee-line for the river and had my feet soaking in the cool water before I knew it. It was great. We soaked all our clothes - giving some old-fashioned air-conditioning to help us make it up another tough climb. It worked - we were cruising - even though the temps were up in 100's, it didn't seem to phase me. We eventually came to another creek - Mission Creek. This was a smaller creek, but had some lovely trees that provided shade right next to the creek. The water was warm - almost like bath water. Tom and I both took a little rinse off in the creek and then took our afternoon siesta. We both agreed - it was the best afternoon siesta place we had been!

Later in the afternoon, we followed the PCT up the creek. A fire and then floods had wreaked havoc in previous years, but it was obvious recent trailwork had been down. The trail was pleasant, slowly rolling up alongside the creek. Rocks lined the trail and cairns helped marked the way as well. It was one of the best maintained trails I had ever walked on (in huge contrast to the horrible trail the previous day). As the sun set, we found a flat spot alongside the trail to set up camp for the night.