Old juniper trees, spiky low banana yuccas (bottom left), pinyon pine trees and four o'clocks (the pink flowers) make this a really pretty place. The last people here even left a bottle of water!
Tomorrow I'll hike up to Keystone Spring in the hope that I will find water there. For now I'll try to ignore my bike-rack problem and enjoy the evening.
As soon as the sun goes down, the temperature drops a lot, as is expected up at 5300 feet. I change into full-length blue jeans with long-underwear shortly after, and I find myself wearing my wool toque and a windbreaker by 21h. It's really quiet tonight, with no strong evening winds for a change, and everything is so silent. No crickets singing here, but there were a few birds earlier.
Supper tonight is Mountain House beef stew (my favourite), with a few tamari almonds and some granola for dessert. As much as I enjoyed the great hamburgers at Nipton the last two nights, my body seems to prefer this backpacker-style food.
The knob of my propane burner somehow disappeared today and I had to use my wrench to open and close the valve to boil water for supper. I fall asleep happily in the chilly 40-something-degree air with my toque and blue jeans on.