Just going for a walk

So today was a shorter day, just 11 miles from my campsite to Trails Pass, then a descent down Trails Pass to Horseshoe Meadows where I got a hitch into town. I took it easy, broke camp late, hiked out to Dutch Meadow where I got lunch and water, then hiked a few more miles to Trails Pass, descended, went the wrong way, found Horseshoe Meadows anyway, and got a hitch with the first car I saw. And there were some memorable trail bits today: from my campsite, the PCT actually makes this curve around a valley--like from 6 o'clock to 3 o'clock to 12 o'clock, and from the 6 o'clock position I remember looking out and seeing the mountain at 12 o'clock (which was Trail Peak) and thinking, wait, I have to go there? And in 5 miles? That's far! That's going to be tough! But it didn't end up being that bad. But the thing I wanted to talk about here was something I've been thinking about for a while now. And that's how this trail, the PCT, feels relentless. ...

As Tags noted when he passed me at lunch, today was the day we pretty much left the desert. And he was right, scenery-wise: instead of dry scrub brush with occasional woods, now everything is large trees and boulders, with some lingering sections of scrub brush (although the brush is now more distinctly green). The mood has changed--we're sub-alpine now, with lots of conifers rising up out of slopes. And, towards the end of the day, the trail passed by full granite mountains. Not just granite peak-cliffs at the tops, but the whole thing--the bulk--in solid granite. *That's* the Sierras. (Well, that and water, but the latter isn't quite in full force yet: a lot of questionable water sources today, leading to effectively longer water carries.) From some of the vistas today, I could look north and see that same granite afar off, looming tall and largely snowless, and I think to myself, well, that's where I'm going. Ah, but I still have to get there! I started the day l...

So, sure, there's trail stuff today. It's below. But there's more important stuff. Ian is the guy handling my resupply, sending me my breakfasts (grape nuts + soy milk powder + chia seeds), a bunch of food you don't expect to find in small-town grocery stores (e.g., dried seaweed and pork sung), and equipment (e.g., my ice axe and microspikes in Kennedy Meadows). He's also my guardian angel when something goes dramatically dramatically wrong, like getting sick above Tehachapi. Well, we were coordinating the upcoming resupply for Bishop on the inReach (pain in the neck to conversate via inReach, but in the Sierras that's often the only game in town) when he sent Terry Braun's phone number--a friend from FBCP--just in case. Ok, I thought, good to have an extra option. That was just a prelude though. Turns out Ian's dad, back in Illinois, has had an aortal tear and gone into emergency surgery. Aortal problems are no joke: that's the kind of thing that k...

So let's take a day in Kennedy Meadows to sort things out. Let's sort out the itinerary (with a helpful consult from Ian). The original plan was to go from Kennedy Meadows > Bishop (via Kearsarge Pass) with a day-hike up Mount Whitney along the way > Mammoth (via Red's Meadow). A very aggressive plan, consisting of 6-8 day food carries. But I got the bear canister and realized how small it really was (and how little I enjoy solving the sphere-packing problem), and I was worried about how I'll do at elevation, so after much discussion, after much eavesdropping on what other hikers are planning (which is a bad idea: it brings up every possible permutation, and they're all more aggressive than what you're thinking and so you feel like a wimp), and after even constructing a spreadsheet with the different options mapped out, I opted for the most conservative route. So Kennedy Meadows > Lone Pine (3 days) > Bishop (via Kearsarge Pass) with a day-hike up Mo...

In the morning, I woke by Fox Mill Spring, in an ample campsite under a large shady tree. A great spot--probably my calmest night on trail--but it was cold in the morning as I got my stuff together. I pulled on my rain jacket (it's waterproof, so insulates well), my wool gloves, and still I felt cold, all the way down to my toes. The heat I can take, but the cold?--that gets me every time. So I hurriedly packed so I could get moving to get warm. Only as soon as I left the campsite and got on the trail, even before I could get any blood pumping, the sun happened to clear the top of the hill and fell on me full force. And, suddenly, *everything* got warm, even my toes. And I realized, ah, *this* is why people worshipped the sun back in the day, because all is freezing and bitter and suffering and then the morning sun--just the first beams of the early morning sun--hits you and the world becomes warm and nice and, hmm, maybe I should shed a layer or two. From there, the hike was simil...

So last night I had *thought* that maybe the wind would die down at night. I was wrong: if anything, it got worse. I had *thought* that maybe my new location would shelter me from any latent wind. I was kinda right, but also kinda wrong: I didn't get the wind directly--I could hear that, though, screaming at the bluff just above me--but I just got the turbulence in its wake. But that turbulence was enough to knock out a couple of tent stakes (just the ones holding the vestibules up, but the tentsite was so narrow that the vestibules were vestigial anyway, so weren't in there too steadily to begin with--the other stakes I put rocks on, and only one of those came loose) and the tent kept smacking me throughout the night. Made for very inefficient sleep. So while I had *thought* an early bedtime would mean an early rise, in fact I slept so on-and-off that I rose late. But at least I broke camp quickly: from waking to hiking a little over an hour. New record! And, yes, it was still...

So how do you get *out* of town? You'd think Ridgecrest, a town of 28,000, would have Uber/Lyft. But Uber said no cars available, and Lyft didn't say anything but the map was devoid of vehicles. Hmm, I checked Guthooks and there was a hiker named Traps who had just posted that she had rented a car and was providing rides between Ridgecrest and the trail. So I texted her asking about that. That was Plan B, but this was just a Guthooks comment, so I invoked Plan C: I called up Sandy, a well-known trail angel in Ridgecrest, and asked her advice. Well, I'm at work or I'd give you a ride, she said, but there are a couple of hikers at my place who are taking the bus to Walker Pass later today. You can go over to my place and wait with them. And so Plan D was born, and she texted me her address and the bus schedule, and off I went to her place. Her place was just around the block from the hotel, so it wasn't a long walk. I knocked and a guy let me in and two dogs immediate...

So let me know if you've heard this story before (seriously: I fear I'm repeating myself with these descriptions). A short hike today, just to Walker Pass 8 miles ahead. And the trail started in the scrub-land desert, with boulders and grit-sand and no cover, everything sun-drenched yellow and dust green, windy and short, but with one interlude: a brief wood, with young trees and deciduous leaves, the morning light slanting between the thin trunks. Then to a clear descent down (what I'm guessing is named) Jack's Creek Canyon, and here the trail becomes a shelf trail slowly walking down the side of the canyon, the dirt yellow and little-grained, crunchy but not yet slippery. The canyon side is wooded too, with old tall trees withstanding the wind, sometimes shaded, but often sparse, and when they suddenly disappear and you come to a bald section, you look down the slope and realize just how steep it is. But some trees there, a bush or two or three, anything to hide the d...

In the morning, I woke to a cloudy, almost overcast, desert, with a cold wind blowing through. My campsite had been mostly sheltered from the wind during the night--it did whip through every now and then, but nothing severe enough to warrant waking up--then the wind suddenly died at dawn, before picking up again after sunrise. Clearly the wind is correlated to temperature. It's very local-specific, but I remember back at Scissors Crossing that it was windy during the day and night, but at dawn and sunset there was probably less than an hour of calm when the temperature differentials just balanced out. This spot seemed to be in that same vein. In the morning, the trail continued walking through the desert. And looking around, it *looked* like desert: gone were the hills with forests decorating a slope over there, now it all just sand and bluff and the occasional juniper stand as far as I could see, and I found that, actually, I rather liked it. Granted, the cloudy morning may have b...