L2H Day 3 – 10/5/16
26.5 miles (50 total)

Yesterday was 10,000′ uphill and today was nearly as much right back down. We’d been warned Tuber Canyon was slow going, but found it pretty smooth, with bits of use trail here and there. Water is sometimes uncertain in this canyon but we found a great spot right where we dropped down in, and happened upon another nice puddle further down canyon.

Toward the bottom of the canyon we picked up some beautiful trail and then a 4WD road. It was all dirt or paved road the rest of the day. We picked up our first water cache, which gave us some great peace of mind given the uncertainty of Tuber Canyon.  We ended up with about 6 miles of  paved road walking that should’ve been on a paralleling dirt road if we’d been able to place our cache where we’d intended, but didn’t want to risk the drive on the spare tire.  This road walk is where I developed a blister on the ball of my just behind my big toe – that’s a new one for me!

All afternoon we were buzzed by military jets running laps through the Panamint Valley.  The lag between sight and sound was almost as incredible as how low to the ground they got!

We put on the afterburners for the last couple of miles as we neared Panamint Springs Resort with darkness setting in. On Monday, Puppy sweet talked an employee at the general store into holding our resupply box for us. Note to others wanting to hike L2H: Panamint’s official position is that they do not accept packages.  We witnessed another hiker get firmly shot down when he asked to leave a resupply, and it was clear they’d been asked a lot recently and were not happy about it.

Since it was late, we ended up deciding to get a room at the resort and, of course, had dinner at the restaurant. Despite being out for just over 2 days, we were all totally encrusted in salt and dirt and taking showers and doing sink laundry was very welcome.