Day 9
Miles: 12
Agua caliente spring to trail angel Mike’s house

I don’t know if the tarp saved us from dew last night, but it caught five big bird bombs for us, and all on my side. I’ll chalk that up for a win.

The area where we camped is basically a poison oak farm, and hiking out of the Agua Caliente valley is a poison oak gauntlet. I’m leading the way, and my morning conversation with J consists nearly entirely of poison oak alerts: “left side… right side…right side, left side, both sides! Both sides!” We spend some time speculating on why, if it’s poisonous, is it also camouflaged? All the sidling and ducking aggravates my wonky knee.
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