Last night was warm and I only used a corner of my sleeping bag for cover off and on. I heard the wind in the tree tops around 2am but only a few puffs found their way into my tent. There was one little squirrel chirping quietly from the nest of a nearby tree & other than that it was quiet. With a mosquito head net on we took down tents, had breakfast and packed up. Today is a 2180 ft elev gain in switchbacks up the granite rock trail climbing off the crags to the mountain beside it. Even after getting off the crags the trail goes uphill all day to our camp spot. We crept up, up, up until we were eyeing the tops of the crags and were out of the trees. Looking back over our morning climb we could see the trail we'd come up on, just a tiny thread across the granite hillside. It took 3 hours to go 4 miles, slow and steady (with much huffing and puffing!) we made it!! 
We rested then hiked on looking for our next water source since we needed to fill up for our dry camp in the evening. We passed over one creek and planned to use the next one but it was a mud hole. We thought we had one more source so hiked on keeping a lookout for the stream. We stopped after awhile and both of us got our maps out, we should have found water by now, what happened? The mud hole had been the last water source! We should have filled up when we passed the first flowing stream. Ugh! After discussion we decided to backtrack 1.6 mi to the nice flowing stream and fill up. We found a wide airy spot to leave our packs in the shade of some huge Douglas Fir trees and taking just our filter and bottles in a carrying bag we hiked back and filled every bottle we had; drinking our fill and getting clothing and bandanas wet to cool off. Coming back up the trail to our packs we met 3 women doing an overnight hike. The first people we'd met in 1 1/2 days.
We rested then hiked on looking for our next water source since we needed to fill up for our dry camp in the evening. We passed over one creek and planned to use the next one but it was a mud hole. We thought we had one more source so hiked on keeping a lookout for the stream. We stopped after awhile and both of us got our maps out, we should have found water by now, what happened? The mud hole had been the last water source! We should have filled up when we passed the first flowing stream. Ugh! After discussion we decided to backtrack 1.6 mi to the nice flowing stream and fill up. We found a wide airy spot to leave our packs in the shade of some huge Douglas Fir trees and taking just our filter and bottles in a carrying bag we hiked back and filled every bottle we had; drinking our fill and getting clothing and bandanas wet to cool off. Coming back up the trail to our packs we met 3 women doing an overnight hike. The first people we'd met in 1 1/2 days. Once back with our packs we had lunch and waited out the hot hours after that extra 3.2 miles! The sun has been hot since 10:30 when the overcast skies cleared. We don't have much farther to go to reach our campsite tonight so at 3:00 we were back on the trail. We are steadily going uphill and can now look across the valley back at Castle Crags where we hiked this morning plus Mt Shasta has appeared in the view. It's just a stunningly beautiful site! We can see the saddle that we go over tomorrow and where we'll camp tonight but the last mile is an uphill that doesn't seem to end. Altogether today we gained 3500 ft and are camping at elev 6672 which helps explain our fatigue at this altitude. There's a nice breeze as we pitch tents in the trees atop this saddle and make dinner. My dinner is tortellini and Colleen is having Mac & Cheese. We should see sunrise from our mountaintop tomorrow morning when the alarm gets us up at 5:30. 
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