Sunday, March 31, 2013 – 16.1 km

Happy Easter! Pops woke me up this morning as he broke camp at an hour that I prefer to not even think about. The two women were more on par with my schedule. When I dragged myself out of my tent and started making breakfast, one of them came over to give me Easter chocolate. Aw thanks! But I saved part for the trail and it melted in my pocket. Aw shucks.

The Rincons are beautiful – beautiful trees, beautiful shade, the scent of pine. I couldn’t resist lingering and didn’t leave the campsite until 10:00 AM. On my way out, I saw an unfamiliar blond-haired woman with no pack. A stealth camper maybe?

Today’s hike was a long slog down to make up for yesterday’s long slog up. The soil was filled with mica and sparkling like snow. Yesterday I thought that I’d found a large piece, but upon closer examination I realized that it was just a piece of food wrapper. Then slightly further along the trail I found another piece that also turned out to be a food wrapper. But fool me THREE times… I did find some actual large pieces of mica today, and beautiful rose quartz as well. Yeah, I’m spending long periods of time admiring rocks, got a problem with that? The best time for admiring rocks is on steep uphills or steep downhills, you know.

The trail entered pastureland where I’m camping tonight.