Day 30 - A Road Walk... Walking the Power House Fire Alternate. 493.4 (16.1 miles walked) (19.1 PCT miles travelled)

Mileage Breakdown: 3.9 mi to Green Valley Fire Station + 12.2 Road Walk Alternately . This connects back up to the PCT at mile 493.4. Everyone in camp woke up with wet gear. There was simply no escape from the dew last night. This irritated most people (especially those who cowboy camped). 

I was more or less content with the situation. I figured it would be hot today, which would dry the damp/wet clothes quickly once the sun came over the ridge. Also, I did not plan on leaving camp very early, so I would let my sleeping bag and tent dry out (to keep the weight down). 

The 4 mile walk to the Green Valley Fire Station was very pleasant. I spent a solid hour and a half here to eat a second breakfast, rest the legs, and hydrate before the long road walk ahead.  Back in 2013, a power house caused a fire to burn a large region of the trail and the surrounding areas. Since then, the trail has been closed from mile 478 thru 492. The alternate is an 11.1 mile road walk followed by a 1.1 mile trail which takes hikers back to the pct at 493.4. 

Along the road walk is a post office, small convenient store and a restaurant. The group, who had left maybe 2 hours before me this morning, had stopped at the restaurant and had a nice lunch. While I was at the convenient store (where I bought an ice cream sandwich), I met up with ST. He raced ahead as I kept a fairly slow pace due to a large blister on my small toe.

A little over a mile later, ST, Riley and Alyssa are drying all of their gear out. I take this time to pop the blister (thread and needle). I figured there were two choices. Either, I leave the blister and hope it doesn't pop while I'm walking or I Doctor it up which hurts a lot, but a callus will for quicker by me saving the blister skin. Long story short, I took 2 and the next 2 hours I was limping from the pain. Hopefully I won't need to do that again.  The pain always seems to subside after 2ish hours. The rest of the walk was much better after this point.

The flies were obnoxious. I will have my bug net sent to Kennedy Meadows which will change the game... the bug game.  Ate, relaxed, went to refill water in my flip flops (gigantic mistake) and ate some more. 2 things happened when refilling my water this evening. First, I lost my balance and might have touched some poison oak (we'll find out) and two, on the walk back to camp, I kicked a rock and opened up a nice gash on my toe. Really, it could have been so much worse. No more flip flop walking out of camp.