We caught the shuttle at 6:00 a.m., and hit the trail by 9:00. The first day has been teaching us a lot about water conservation, the scarcity of other hikers, acclimating to a dry climate, and the unforgiving fireball in the sky. As is our custom, we pushed a little bit hard from water source to water source and from day to night since we missed good shade for the warmest part of the day. Shade here is made of pure gold! We didn’t have enough water for a siesta once we found shade near lunch time, but I think we have a good grasp of timing food, water, shade, naps, and the hottest part of the day.
We made it all the way past the big hatchet range and almost to little hatchet by 9:30 in the evening, hiking by moonlight and starlight for a chunk of the evening. I almost forgot how well one can see in the desert just by night light! However, the trail became difficult to find by the moon as it started crossing a sandy playa, so we backtracked, threw our beds on the ground, ate a much needed dinner, and cowboy camped in the dusty wind and starlight (a.k.a. on the open ground). It was absolutely beautiful and we slept wonderfully all through the night. Since we didn’t make it to the water cache before camp, we started the day with too little water for breakfast. So, we finished the last 1.8 mi to the cache and met several of the other hikers in our tiny group, drank coffee, ate breakfast, socialized, and moved on.