In the morning I took a look and the burn had not miraculously improved. I went back to the water cache again and got some more water and cleaned the area again and also drank a lot of water. With a burn I figured it was even more important not to get dehydrated. I tried to bandage the area and thought I had done a pretty good job but after a little walking the bandage has fallen off. Bad thing about the knee is that it tends to move a lot while you are walking. So the movement and the sweat took the pathetic bandage off. So I stopped and tried again with some smaller bandages on the worst parts of the burn. About this time a hiker went past me and he announced his name was Wildebeest and asked how I way. I said pretty good and he continued walking. I laughed at myself. Only a PCT hiker would say “pretty good” with a bad burn on his knee, 4 toe nails about to come off, and a blister on his heal that was so big it looked like he was growing another heal. But stuff happens and you do the best you can. Just a bit later I came to bridge with a stream underneath and Wildebeest was nowhere to be seen. Generally people get out of site pretty fast but this was ridiculous. Anyway I went down to stream to get some water and there was Wildebeest under the bridge in the shade having a snack. He was eating Oreo cookies. We talked for awhile and I found out he only could do 200 more miles because he had to get back to work. He was going to do the PCT piecemeal. Looked like he was going to stay there for awhile and so I decided to move on. Not much further I came to some trail magic that contained chocolate/rice bunnies and ORANGES and a notebook for comments. Everyone had made comments about how they appreciated the Oranges. However, there was only 1 left. I knew when Wildebeest got there and saw that there were oranges but none were left he would be disappointed. I also knew that Wildebeest would catch up to me soon and pass me. So I took the orange and saved it. About 30 minutes later, Wildebeest did catch up to me and we stopped and I shared the orange with him. It was a good moment.

Had been walking basically in the desert up till the time Wildebeest and I shared the orange but as we came to the crest we saw the lake in the picture below. Quite a change of scenery.

About half way around the lake I could tell my second bandage attempt had failed also. So I dropped my pants and sat down and tried to figure out what I could do. About that time I heard a women’s voice say WHOA!! I called out that there was nothing going on here, I was just trying to bandage a burn. Turns out the WHOA was a gal telling her horse to stop. She was the one doing the PCT by horse that I had mentioned earlier. Because she was on a horse she could carry a bit more than most of us and she had a full first aid kit. Her name was Rhonda, trail name “horse-n-around”, but I just called her angel. He gave me some proper bandages and tape and instruction to get the burned area taped so that it would stay and then she rode off into the sunset.

After finally getting around the lake it is time to start climbing again over the mountains towards I15 and McDonald’s. I still had lots of energy and wanted to get some of the climb finished today and so started up. I had lots of energy and the climb was pretty easy. I had the feeling that I might actually be getting use to this. It felt good. Here is a sign at the start of the climb.

I did not go all the way to the top of the mountain but stopped a little short at a quaint little camping spot. It was small and so I decided to cowboy camp and just put out the mat and the sleeping bag and truly sleep under the stars. It was a beautiful night. Looking up at the stars, I had lots of thoughts which I will share in the next post.