• Dates: April 7 - 8, 2019

• Trail Mile 300.5

Sleeping hard in our own bed in Phoenix was the relaxation I needed.  All four of slept in and woke to the warm glow of spring in the desert, doors thrown open in the apartment.  We decided that we would take two zero days here for the reasons (a) it was our apartment so it didn’t cost us extra to stay, (b) we wanted to spend some time with Taylor, (c) we were ahead of schedule due to our faster hiking pace than expected, (d) because we could.  

We got breakfast and dinner with Taylor and Ashley, enjoying a day lounging around, swimming in the pool, and completely unwinding.  The next morning, Janna and I said adieu to Taylor and Ashley as we dropped them at the airport.  Then, it was a whirlwind of activity.  We went through the mail on hold, returned gear that wasn’t working, purchased food for the next section, washed gear, repaired gear, and assembled some mail drops (plus mailing them!).  We had only assembled mail drops up to Phoenix previously as we didn’t want to over-hedge our bets on how far we would travel on the trail given my knee.  Now that we were here, we felt more confident we could finish.  We spent hours assembling everything until the end and ran to the post office at 9 pm to drop it all off.  We got back home and passed out, knowing we had to get up early to get dropped back at Picketpost Mountain.