I slept in a little bit so by the time I woke up the condensation that had fallen already dried up. Pacer broke camp first, I followed about 15 min later, and Sarah went out 15 min after me. I only had one Swig of water left that morning but I wasn't worried because the next water was only 4 miles away. I worked up some pretty good blisters on that downhill the day before so was moving at a pretty slow pace so Sarah passed me in no time at all. When I finally got to the water source I was glad because not only was I pretty thirsty, but I knew that the downhill was finally over. Sarah and I hung out at the water for about 30 min and saw danielle from the night before hobble down. It a huge wake up call for me because it was the end of her hike. Trail angels were coming to pick her up and then she was flying home. She was in tears as she was telling us her plan, not from the foot pain, but from the disappointment of having to leave the trail. I felt very fortunate that my only pain was from blisters, and nothing a days rest wouldn't heal. We said goodbye to danielle and made our way across the desert floor to trail angels ziggy and the bear's house. Sarah spotted a rattler basking in the sun and it reminded me to watch me step. As we got closer to ziggys, the roar of I 10 grew louder. It was strange Hearing the traffic because it was the loudest noise I had heard in two weeks. It was almost deafening. Crossing under I 10 it was weird to think that i could take it all the way to my house in houston. Ziggys was just passed the interstate. We were greeted by ziggy and the bear with an ice cold gatorade. They had us sign in and took our picture. I was hiker 994 that had stopped by their house. I couldn't believe that many people were already on the trail, and the were probably just as many behind me. Sam and Roman were already there so it was great to have the whole group back together again. There were also many other new and familiar faces there as well. All the hikers had to stay outside in the backyard, but they had big tents and chairs to sit in the shade. Also their whole backyard was carpeted so i could walk around barefoot. i was able to wash my clothes and take a shower which felt amazing. i love having clean feet and socjs. We all relaxed in the shade for most of the day and discussed our plans for the fire closure coming up. There were three options. 1. Just go through the closure illegally. 2. Take an alternate which involved a long waterless road walk. Or 3 skip it and take a shuttle to big bear lake further up the trail. Our group opted to take the alternate. After devouring an entire hot and ready pizza picked up trail angels, our group decided to head out and do a little night hiking to beat the heat and get a head start for the next day. We added a new person to our group named trigger, and he led the way with a head light. The rest of us just followed the person in front and called out rocks and other tripping hazards as we saw them. We went about four miles in and called it a night. Everyone cowboy camped and had great views Of the stars again.
Day 15 - 14 miles