Slept great last night with the creek trickling in the background. Today is only a 16 mile day but has some big elevation gain and the dreaded poodle dog brush. The first 9 miles were wonderful. We just followed the creek up to it's source for about 3000 ft in elevation. Then right around the hottest part of the day I had to climb 1500 ft in 3 miles dodging a poodle dog brush infestation.
Poodle dog brush is like a cross between poison oak, Marijuana, and a cactus. The plant itself looks very similar to Marijuana and is easily identified once you know what to look for. The problem with it is unlike the other poisonous plants it isn't oily. Instead the leaves are covered with a fine hair like substance. Kinda like fiberglass particles. If you touch it they get under your skin and cause rash similar to poison oak. This stretch if trail was trimmed enough that even mountain goat who missed the rock pointing out an example of poodle dog brush was able to walk past it just fine, but later down the trail there are long detours I have to take to avoid it.
The climb was a joke by AT standards gave me a fairly hard time. I mostly put this down to the altitude and heat. I was walking up the hill in 300 yard stretches moving from shade to shade till I reached the spot I agreed to meet the others for lunch. At which point I just rolled out my sleeping pad and took a nap. When the other guys caught up they were even more worn out and wanted us to take a shorter day than we planned. I agreed to stick with them since the only thing doing more miles would get me would be was walking into big bear on Friday night and taking a zero to resupply instead of hiking in and out.
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