7/6/17: Parks Creek Trailhead Mile 1537.2 to Disappearing Creek Mile 1508.8

28 and a half miles today for my 27 and a half birthday! One extra mile for good luck I guess. 
Today did not start out like it was going to be a big day. We did our new thing of not setting an alarm and slept in til 7ish! We didn’t get moving until a little after 8, which is at least an hour before we typically get hiking. 
We passed Flame, another SOBO, that we’d met a couple days ago and she told us Yote and Two Point Toe were about 10 minutes ahead of her. We haven’t seen them since the day before yesterday when we were leaving camp! They must’ve passed us and not seen our tent this morning. We eventually caught them and they were very confused how they’d gotten ahead of us! We chatted for a bit but then we kept hiking while they took a snack break–we had to make some miles with our late start. 

It was beautiful walking this morning (I realize I say this everyday, but it really is so pretty and there are constant views). We passed a bunch of alpine lakes just off the trail today. We didn’t stop and swim unfortunately but they were really pretty to look at. The terrain today was quite pleasant. It was mostly flat or gentle uphill or downhill for the majority of the day–making for not very strenuous walking, which I’m a big fan of. We passed a lot of nobos today, which seems to be the new norm. I’d guess we passed 20 or even close to 30! They tell us they see a lot of people walking south but we have only met three others! I imagine the number of people going south is a fraction of those hiking north. 
We crossed a couple minor lingering patches of snow today. We had a view of Mt Shasta all day today, well actually more like all day for the past week or so. It is beautiful to look at but I also feel like I’ve seen all sides of it by now and it makes me feel like the trail is just meandering in circles
We had a bit of a dry stretch today which hasn’t happened since the desert. About 13 miles without water. Not a big deal, but we’ve been spoiled with abundant water as of late. We took a brief break to fill up on water but then didn’t stop again until lunch, around 2:30. We’d done over 19 miles by then! This was good news for us, as our late start didn’t put too much of a dent in our progress. We took a quicker than usual lunch and decided to push on another 9.5 miles for the day. Sadly this probably meant Yote and 2.Toe wouldn’t catch us tonight, but we will see them in town. Wolf Bird and I like to maximize our walking time so then we can have fewer miles in town with the overarching goal of maximum lazy time in town. 
After lunch we had 4.5 miles remaining in the dry stretch and by the time we got to the water I was quite thirsty! I was debating not filtering the water (sometimes I don’t if it’s a nice spring), but Wolf Bird found a dead snake in the water. Definitely filtered it!
We had all downhill for the last 4.5 miles to camp. It was super hot in the blazing sun but I was grateful to be going down the rocky switchbacks rather than climbing them like the many nobos we passed. We arrived at camp around 6:30 and set up and ate quickly. The mosquitoes were fairly bad so I finished my dinner in the tent. We are excited for town tomorrow! We are heading into Mt Shasta and I get a new replacement backpack. Mine has been sitting about six inches to the left on my back for at least half the trail. I’ve had a huge knot in my left shoulder as a result. I finally reached out to Osprey and they sent a replacement pack to an outfitter in Mt Shasta, no questions asked. I’m so excited for my pack to sit normally again!!!