Decided to push for a big day, hiking 26 miles from Groundhog creek shelter to Hot Springs. Got an early start, waking up before dawn, hiking the first hour in the dark.

We worked our way up to Max Patch, climbing back up to 4600ft.

As we got higher the wind picked up and the temperature dropped. Everything was covered in a layer of ice.

The ground was frozen solid and our trekking poles barely dented the ground.  The trail itself was full of frozen mud from rain the day before.

The views were incredible. Without any trees you could see 360 degrees around the bald.

Eventually we worked our way off the bald, dropping down below 4000ft and getting out of the snow/ice and warming up a bit.

We made pretty good time throughout the day, only stopping for a couple snack breaks.  During one of them, a large chipmunk stopped by to visit.

Halfway through the day, we doing the largest tree on the trail so far, a massive pine tree.

As the day wore on and the miles piled up, we were definitely tested.  We hadn’t had a day over 20 miles yet and took a quick picture to mark that milestone before pushing on.

The last couple miles of descent down to Hot Springs was a grind, but we finally made it just before 8pm, putting us just under 13 hours for the day (including breaks)

We are taking a zero on Monday, need to resupply and  go to REI to replace a busted up pair of shoes.