where are my trail legs?

Day 23 ~ miles 376.5 - 395.5

Shew, today was a really difficult hiking day (for me, anyway...Moonshine was fine).  We started off with a pretty steep climb up to the peak of Mt. Baden-Powell, which stands at 9,399 feet.  My legs were so tight and I was breathing so heavy.  I blamed it on the altitude.  We took the short side trail to the summit, where finally after 2 days of walking in the clouds, we were bathed in sunshine with a clear view to one side of the mountain and overlooking the clouds on the other.

The hiking continued to be pretty slow, especially going uphill, as the morning dragged by for me.  We took a late morning break with Joker and Kelsey at Little Jimmy spring, the best water we've seen on the trail thus far.  We watched birds and bees drinking from the spring while we sat on nature's furniture, sawed logs, and listened to the soothing sounds of the trickling water.

A portion of the trail is closed due to an endangered species of frog (Yellow Legged Mountain frog, I think?), so we had to do a bit of road walking. We had more really steep, slow, and difficult ascents, and I could no longer blame my poor performance on the altitude.   Just as I was beginning to think that I had my "trail legs," the past 2 days have proven otherwise!  Oh well, not much else I can do but keep on putting one foot in front of the other.  Oh, speaking of feet, I am pretty much blister free (1 tiny exception) with all old blisters healed up, and Moonshine continues to have problems with minor blisters, but they are improving.  Lots of trial and error blister care!

We are camping at Cooper Canyon trail camp, where we have the whole place to ourselves.  We haven't camped alone since probably the 3rd night of the trail.  I'm going to take my first dose of "Vitamin I" (ibuprofen to hikers) of the entire trail.  I can't believe that neither of us have required it before now, but my body hurts!