Day 16, May 3: Mile 212 to 230

• Start: Mile 211.6

• End: Mile 229.5

• Miles: 17.9

• Ascent: 4596 | Descent: 2105

I did not sleep well as there were brutal winds that picked up around midnight and did not stop all night. I had to grip my quilt with both hands to hold it around me and not let the wind slap it into my face to be able to fall back asleep. 

The four of us (Alex, Christina, Power Plant and me) started hiking by 5am to beat some of the desert heat. My left foot was hurting a lot as I started hiking and I was grateful for the conversation with Alex to distract me. 

We reached Whitewater Preserve around 8:30 and enjoyed soaking our feet in the wading pool. The rangers were super nice and the whole place was beautiful. I was sad because my mom had wanted to come visit me on the trail here, but I didn’t realize the timing of when we’d get there and it was too late before I figured it out. 

Alex had gotten a message from Snake Charmer that he was camping at the Preserve and would wait for us there, but we figured he had left already as the day was warming up. But as we were sitting at the wading pool, we looked over and saw him in the distance! Topo ran over to him and we were reunited! Snake Charmer’s windless cozy night under the trees at the Preserve sounded much better than ours in the windy wash. 

We peeled ourselves away from the lovely pool and continued hiking on. We reached Whitewater River a few short miles later. We soaked our whole bodies in the river and resisted continuing on, again. But it was getting hot and we had 8 miles to go until the next water source and potential siesta spot. 

The next section of hiking was a super hot, somewhat steep climb up a canyon, and some of the most brutal miles for me yet. I was already struggling but pulled out my sun umbrella and just kept trying to put one foot in front of the other. I could feel a painful blister forming on my left heel, and every step was pretty miserable. The group kept getting farther and farther ahead of me as I had to keep taking breaks. 

I finally reached the group after an agonizing solo hike, and they had a lovely little setup in the shade next to a creek. I was pretty wrecked and plopped down wordlessly in between the others. Alex told me to open my hand and put a Payday in it, which I inhaled. It started to bring me back to life.

We chilled for a while in the shade and then started hiking the next 3 miles towards a campsite. Many of the sites we were hoping to camp at were taken, but we found another nice cowboy camping spot next to a creek. The peaceful sound of frogs croaking filled the canyon.

We had dinner time together, and Alex popped and threaded my painful blister from earlier, which I had never done. Christina took a video of me freaking out with my eyes closed while he was doing it, and then I opened them to realize it was already over and it didn’t even hurt. Hopefully the blister is better tomorrow!