I camped overnight at Gilmore Lake, and then today--still nursing our loose shoes--the horses and I faced a long day's ride of 33 miles to Five Creek, which was the only suitable campsite around. It definitely isn't easy finding places to stay overnight with the horses at times. Ideally, I love it when I can find some grazing for them, but that's not very often, especially when we are travelling through high altitude mountain settings such as this. Of course, access to water is a must, and there also have to be trees where I can secure the highline for the horses. Some fairly level ground is also necessary, not just a little space for my tent but enough so that the horses aren't standing all night on a slope. After walking so many miles during the day, I certainly want them to rest well at night, and the strain on their legs of standing on a hillside would not be good. They also like to lie down at times too, and that isn't possible if it's not level. So I'm often going a long ways in search of a place to stop for the night.

Then on Friday we had a short but difficult 18 miles to return to the vehicle at Highway 80; I lost the third shoe with 5 miles to go and had to limp on slowly from there, trying not to damage Takoda's hoof anymore than was unavoidable since I didn't have a third emergency boot. The trail was quite rocky coming into Donner Pass, so that slowed us down, too. But eventually we made it, and I even got back to Carol Pauli's in time to grab some dinner with her and some friends.

#2016PCT