Day 20

Ouch, oh but the quads and calves are stiff this morning. Maybe the 11 mile hike wasn't such a good idea. Fortunately the first 30 miles this morning were down the Merced river. Whee! we averaged over 21 MPH. Alas it ended and we had a 6 mile climb before descending to Mariposa. Lunch in town and then uphill into the heat. Besides the heat one of the locals let us know we also had 166 curves between here and Coulterville to look forward to. The radio had said to expect temperature above 100 in Sacramento and since we were at only 2000 feet it had to be close to that here.

Also. Of course that is measured in the shade and we weren't. There was a long steep 6 plus mile climb into Coulterville so we decided to wait out the heat of the day under a bridge and cool off in the river. At around 5 we decided to begin the climb anticipating a cold beer in town at the oldest saloon in California, operated continuously since 1899. We had dinner as well as beer there. We headed out at sunset with 13 miles to go. The last few miles to Mocasin point campground were ridden in the dark. A quick lake bath and we were in our sleeping bags by 10.

20/84/12.6/1360