I was in a surprisingly good mood this morning given that I didn't get dinner last night. Sue has a pocket rocket stove, and bless her heart, she boiled me water for coffee this morning. This morning, I pulled Sue aside and said, " I don't care what Squatch sez, I am not hiking beyond Live Oak Spring today." She said she agreed with me.... Never say never.

It was really a beautiful day today, and finally we got out of the wind to a great degree which helped morale tremendously. We started to move into a different climactic zone which for me meant a whole slew of different plant and animal life to photograph.
So today, I think I finally got the crutching technique down solid... where I can hike fairly quickly and still keep a good deal of stress off of my knee.

We made it to the junction for live oak Springs, which was to be our destination for the night, at 3:30pm. Squatch said that if I would agree to hike 3 more miles, then he would hike the 2 mile round trip to the springs and back to get us water. I, of course said ok.

The last few miles down into Penrod Canyon were really gorgeous... big granite boulders and wonderfully exotic socal vegetation. This was a spectacular day!


A Gallery of photographs from the hike can be found here: http://www.pbase.com/splashphoto/san_jacinto