We leave the lakes behind and begin our descent into the valley. It wasn't much beyond this point that I noticed I was tripping on every stone and my footing was no longer stable. A sure sign I had pushed too far. Continuing on meant an escalating risk of injury. Twisting an ankle with a heavy pack could end the trip right here. I told Andra I planned to stop the second we found trees large enough to hang our food.

By the time we found such trees, I was extremely fatigued. We set up camp and got some water from Piute Creek. As I waited for the water to boil, I sat in my chair like a massive dead weight. We had hiked 10 miles over approximately an 8 hour span with many stops to visit with other hikers; however, we were still 700 feet too high for a fire. Once the stove cooked us some dinner (chicken burritos), we relaxed in our chairs as I cut cheddar cheese to top them off. The burritos consisted of chicken, refried beans, onion, bell peppers, spices and cheese. After burning thousands of calories to get here, I should have hoovered them down like an industrial shop vac, but after I ate the first one, I realized just how close to my limit I had pushed. I rolled a second burrito and proceeded to stare at it. After a few minutes looking at it, I realized that any attempt to eat it would only cause me to lose it and the first burrito I had consumed.

I told Andra how I was feeling, and decided it was best to just keep sipping liquids and rehydrate rather than lose what calories I had consumed so far. I later buried the extra burrito in the woods and the three of us all got a good nights rest. I had hoped to get below 10k and camp two nights in order to recover from the assault on Piute Pass; however, still perched at 10,700ft, we decided to pickup camp the next morning and work down to a lower elevation. So much for our two day rest.