Day 25: Mon, May 22

(Dr Bug) In early morning we came apon nicely built Little Jimmy Spring. It had benches, a view and clear piped water. Tony was there doing his laundry. We filled our water bladders and headed on.

This was the kind of day where I didn't want to do much thinking. The weather was warm and clear and I was happy to hike behind Susan and get lost in my thoughts. And that is exactly what I do, never more than 3 feet from her backpack I followe her like a lost dog. Done it a million times. Only this time STUD was also lost in her own thoughts and we wandered off trail and got lost. The trail (we thought we were still on the PCT) became more difficult and steep. We were were climbing up and down an 8,000 ft mountain,and at one point straight down a rock slide--a hillside of gravel. That's when STUD yelled, "this can't be @#$%& PCT".

The view was tremendous! We pondered maps, walked up and down, then, in the most democratic way you can in a marriage (let the wife decide), we turned around to retrace our steps and find the real PCT.

Ultimately we decided that we had taken the Mt Williamson Peak trail. We lost about 2 hrs of hking time and a half day of energy. This was the most challenging trail we had been on this hike. (Stud did some freaking out on the rock slides).

For the rest of the day we never got back on track. Both of us were hiper sensitive to the trail - 'have we gotten off he trail again'. We talked ourselves out of stopping for water near the end of the day and ultimately we spent the night without water, no dinner and so tired we were asleep by 7pm. We walked 16 trail miles today. No idea how many total miles.