One of the nice parts of the first leg of the JMT out of Happy Isles is that there's a shot of home. Tuolumne Meadows offers hot meals, hot showers and pay phones. After 24 miles on the trail (about the halfway point of the first leg), Diana and Darrell were happy to enjoy some creature comforts.

They were headed back out this afternoon on a relatively flat, six-mile walk. Saturday, they'll likely attack 11,050-foot Donohue Pass.

The satellite phone has been hit and miss. All we can do is wait for updates and remember what we told you when we introduced this journey last Sunday: "We don't know for sure where all of this will take us. But an adventure, by definition, has no certain outcome."