Up at about 5 to pack my stuff. The sinus junk had gone away, and I was feeling better mentally. Pack was ready to go by 5:30, which was when breakfast started. Scout and Frodo provided it all again, and it was really tasty.
26 of us were starting from S&F's. It was a lot to organize, but they handled it with an ease born of lots of practice. At 6 we loaded into the cars and drove to the Southern Terminus. There was a lot of good energy, which helped alleviate some of my nervousness.
I made a fairly big mistake that first day. Last year I had 2 1.5-liter Smartwater bottles for water. I forgot they made them that big this year, and started with 2 1-liters. Since I only went through one bottle last year getting to Hauser Creek, I thought I would be fine.
I arrived at Hauser bone dry. Hauser was also bone dry, and I still needed water to cook dinner and breakfast, as well as make it the 5 miles to Lake Morena. I ended up going upstream over a half mile to see if some pools still had water in them. No dice. After getting back to camp, I got a bit of water from someone who had extra so I could make it 1.6 miles to a cistern that was for sure full. Luckily I had enough light left to do it. I was completely exhausted after that, though, so I just purified some water to drink, put up my tent, and went to bed.
I hiked most of the day with a German guy whose name I can't remember. Big surprise, as I am horrible with names. When we stopped at the stream at mile 4.4, he said it looked like a good spot for Second Breakfast. Hearing that, I commented that saying things like that would get him a Hobbit nickname. He said he was fine with that, so I said "OK Pippin" and called him that the rest of the day.
We saw two pretty big rattlesnakes when we got water after getting to Hauser, so that was interesting
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