We wake up to a glowing sky of bright clouds—and the mosquitopocalypse. The price of early-season flowers and lush greenery is an unholy amount of mosquitos. We’re grateful for our headnets while hiking and doing river-water-laundry.

Today is our first resupply stop, picking up our cache at the Longmire Ranger Station. We sit on the ground with other hikers and sort through our new food before doing more laundry in the empty bucket. All my thru-hiker instincts kick in, telling me to stuff myself with burgers and ice cream and keep my phone charging at an outlet until the last possible second.

The day brings more mountain views, lush forests, flowing rivers, etc., etc. It’s pretty.

Paradise River Camp was rebuilt on the western side of the river in 2020, with new campsites spread up a steep slope connected by freshly cut paths. We rinse off at the river and paparazzi a very handsome frog who does its best to ignore us.

After we’ve settled into our site and eaten dinner in our hammock, a young-ish guy comes tearing up the hill with a huge pack and a “service dog” (skeptical quotation marks because national parks have very strict rules about dogs on backcountry trails), yelling “someone took my site!” Which is possible—but everyone has to have a permit that matches their site for every night, and my guess is that the guy with the off-leash dog and aggressive attitude might be the one who messed up his permit. We think he’s eventually taken in by the guys camped downhill.

In any case, we continue to make full use of our amazing hammock.

Tuesday, July 20, 2021
9.1 miles: 1,475′ up, 2,450’ down
Devil’s Dream to Paradise River Camp