Day 92: (22.5 miles)
mile 1216.5 – 1239

In keeping with last night’s amazing sunset, this morning’s sunrise was nothing to sneeze at.  Today was to be a series of “rolling” ups and downs. 

We were treated to another fabulous spring at “A Tree” (at mile 1219.4) and set our sights on hopefully a swim in Duck Soup Pond.  We were hoping that if it’s called a lake and looks like a swamp that conversely, a pond called “Duck Soup” may actually be a pristine lake.  We were half right.  The water was “clear” but not swimable as it was fairly shallow and littered with logs and reeds surrounding the perimeter.  It was hotter than “a stack of black cats”, as one of our friends would have exclaimed.  (The term actually is supposed to be “hotter than a stack of blankets”, but she heard her this from her grandfather with a thick Long Island accent, as black cats, and it stuck). Being so hot, we had consumed most of our water and needed to refill, so Paul walked out onto a log partially submerged in the pond and collected water (which we filtered).  While we collected and filtered the water, it appears that the mosquitoes had sent a memo to the flies abdicating their responsibility to harass us.  The flies took up the charge, immune to our bug spray, but not to the hand (squish).  These things have teeth and will exact a pound of flesh if you let them.  We packed up, watered up, but not refreshed and moved on. Our goal was the stream near La Porte rd and then camp.  As we were coming to the road we spied two Styrofoam coolers and a two gallon jug of water.  Trail magic!…psych!  All empty, except for three hot dog buns.  We settle for hot dog buns.  It was fairly early when we got to the stream, (complete with a giant buck that ran off as we approached) so we decided we would go two more miles.  We did three miles before we found an acceptable place to camp. We made plans to make it to the Feather River, a well know swimming hole, by noon tomorrow. The heat is unbearable.