Day 75: Mile 872.2 - 876.0

Today was the day into Vermillion Valley Resort--which everyone knows as just VVR--to grab a couple-day resupply to make it to Mammoth (via Red's Meadow). The way to VVR required hiking up the PCT another 4 miles (3.8, but let's say 4), then turning onto an 8.2-mile side trail that's "all downhill", all the way to VVR. Sounds straightforward.

Physically, today was a tough day.

Start with the morning. I got up, looked up, and even after the morning sprinkles subsided, could see a handful of mosquitos inside my tent fly (but thankfully outside my tent mesh). So I got on my long pants (of course), my rain jacket, my head net, my gloves--all the things--and as I was, say, kneeling to inventory my bear canister, I look to the side and saw a little cloud--a literal cloud--of maybe 20 mosquitos swarming around at the level of my head, occupying a space roughly the size of my head plus lungs, just waiting for a hole to open up in my protective suit. And every now and then one would buzz by my ear, make that horrifying high-pitched whine, and even though I knew the head net would protect me, instinct would kick in and I would shoo it away. And it wasn't just me, everybody traveling through that river valley had clouds of mosquitos either on them or following them. Even when Uno and I got hiking (early, Dylan would catch up), we kept all the gear on, and hiking in that getup, uphill over switchbacks, before you eat (because you don't want to expose the face to eat), turns out to be tough.

We did finally break down, though, and eat, right before a particularly dense set of switchbacks. And the mosquitos immediately swarmed, so we ended up eating in our headnets.

The mosquitos wouldn't thin out until about 2 miles down the side trail, after we passed a small flowing stream, and for a while it was good to hike without gloves, with the rain jacket front-open and pit-zips-wide and without the head net.

So then it started raining.

And just a few fat drops, and maybe a sprinkle shower or two, the latter being a bit too lingering. Because if you looked up and out--as we were able to when the side trail ended and we got onto the dam and roads leading to VVR--behind wasn't a puffy cloud or two, but a seeming front of weather, gray and ominous and, now, thundering deeply. 

As alluded to, the side trail eventually ends in a road at the southern edge of Lake Thomas A Edison, and we crossed over the top of the dam (after hopping the fence saying the road was closed and hard hats required--I'm assuming the road closure is the same as the ones I've encountered on Saturdays and means closed to vehicular, not to foot traffic, and as for the hard hat, yeah, didn't pack mine out from Bishop!), and as we went the sunlight broke through increasingly rarely, and the storm gathered increasingly closer, and the thunder grew increasingly nearer.

And after crossing the dam, we headed along the shore of the lake, only suddenly the way ended in a little turnabout and there was no trail, only the woods at the edges of the lake. There was a boat launch here, so there was a dirt road, and it *did* connect to the road to VVR, but we would have to go backwards--away from VVR--to get that junction and, as a rule, PCTers don't do that. So instead I saw the hint of a use trail into the woods--as Dylan mused when he say it, that's not much of a trail--and we opted to follow it blindly--it was going in the right direction, at least--and luckily this faint path did eventally link up with the road. And now we were walking the dirt road, and now the front had caught up and it was raining, actually starting to rain, and after a long mile, we finally got over a little bluff and came to VVR, wet and cold.

But before the true weather, because about half an hour later, it started hailing, hard, pea-sized bits of ice, storming down with an anger that reminds you that, yes, you are at the mercy of the weather.

And Dylan was fine with all this, loving it, but Uno and I were wet and cold. And even when they eventually opened the inside seating of VVR and we poured in, even then it took a couple of hours for me to get full sensation back into my fingertips, because I don't do wet and cold well. (And, yes, I can hear you wondering what I'm going to do in Washington: I'm just going to hurt is what I'm going to do!)

But at VVR, there was a whole gaggle of PCT hiker folks, all sheltering from the rain and hail under the outside seating area (there's a roof built over it, but it's open to the outside world on two sides. And there was Jailbreak and Emily, along with Quiet, and Dylan and Uno and me sat with them for a bit before Jailbreak realized that we were all April 16ers. Well, imagine that! And I saw Michael--from Mount Laguna and Idyllwild and Big Bear, that Michael!--who I hadn't seen in forever and he was so happy to see me and I so happy to see him (and evidently he's the guy in the pink hat now) and we said hi and, being both pretty introverted, kinda failed to catch up (it happens). And Max and Marina and Seth were there, and I said hi--they looked happy and "into it" as always. And KT was there and we talked for a while (and he had a sad story), and then Lemming and Nightstalker (the younger brothers of Big Brother, the latter whom I'd met at Rae Lakes) and Patches showed up and I shared a table with them and KT for a while, and we talked some more.

The big occasion of the afternoon came a couple hours after we arrived, when they opened the *indoor* seating area and served pie hot out of the oven! (Evidently the supply train hadn't arrived in time today so lunch had been canceled: the pie was to make up for it.) So everyone crowded inside, where it was warmer and drier, and ate a slice of pie. Which flavor?--didn't matter, it was warm and sweet and good. And I must admit, a piece of warm pie, after huddling at the 16er table on the edge of the outside area, my fingers still cold as I finger-bombed a jar of nutella onto wet tortillas, that restored a sense of normalcy that was most welcome. A sense that things were going to be ok, that civilization not only existed, but also wasn't going to leave us out in the cold.

The second big occasion of the afternoon--well for Dylan and Uno--was a game of monopoly. A group formed: AC/DC and Outlast (a couple), and Lux and Kahleesi (another couple), and Dylan and Uno (*not* a couple). They asked me if I wanted in, but honestly I was tired and shutting down and really all I wanted was to find a warm place and sleep. I didn't, of course--instead chatted with KT and then Lemming and Nightstalker--but I certainly wasn't of a mind to play a game, and a competitive one at that (I skew very heavily toward the cooperative side, and get very nervous when confronted with the competitive side, in group situations). But this ended up being a pretty epic Monopoly game. AC/DC got knocked out first, then Outlast, then Kahleesi, leaving Lux and Dylan (who's very competitive when it comes to Monopoly) and Uno (who's not). At this point, although Uno had a lead, the game looked like it would take a while to resolve--that classic interminable Monopoly endgame--but the staff said the game had to be cleared out before dinner, so a total wealth calculation was called. And Uno won by a landslide: her cash alone was comparable to the total wealth of the Lux and Dylan, and that's before the properties came into play. So the one who really doesn't care ends up winning. Ah well, so it goes!

Dinner itself was good, by the way: I ordered the chicken, got a half chicken, and did my best to respect my Chinese roots and suck the meat off all the little bones. Some folks got the ribs and those looked hearty and huge: a ton of meat! For dinner the staff went around to the tables and took orders, starting with the folks outside so we had to wait, but that was fine: we were inside and warm and comfortable (I was seated on my bear canister, so a bit short but still comfortable) and when the food arrived, contented.

And that was pretty much the stay at VVR: coming in during a rainstorm, watching the hailstorm go by, then pie, then Monopoly, then dinner. And conversations, lots of conversations as the place was sick with hikers. Then to sleep!

Overall, I probably should have done more at VVR, should have probably spent more time figuring out the resupply (instead of rushing it all just as the store closed at night), or setting up my tent. (I conceded to Dylan's experience on this one: he opted to delay setting up his tent until the rains stopped, which they did, but pretty late in the afternoon. But by then it was dinner time and we wanted to make sure to get dinner, so we waited until they came round to get our orders, then rushed outside to pick spots for our tents. Only by then Dylan had gotten an agreement with AC/DC and Outlast to use *their* tent--already set up!--for the night while they had gotten a spot on the floor of someone's cabin, so I just set up my tent nearby in the twilight.) But instead I opted to laze away the day just hanging out and talking to folks and, given the conditions outside with the rain and hail, I think that was the better choice to manage my mood and keep from getting too down, if nothing else. 

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Some notes:

-- Campsite > Bear Ridge Trail Junction > Dam > Boat Launch > Road > Vermillion Valley Resort

-- On the descending side trail, I decided to try a little experiment. I've seen comments--on the Internets!--that some folks feel it's easier to run downhill than to walk. They feel running puts less strain on the legs. So I decided to try it: there are some steeper sections of the trail, and at these I decided to try running down. And I will say that the comments are not wrong: it does feel like less strain on the legs. And I think the reason is twofold: first, because you're running, the muscles in the legs are tense at the moment of footfall, helping buttress the impact, whereas when walking, the muscles relax at impact (that's the "heavy foot" feeling when you step down) and the force travels all the way up the leg. Second, when walking you place your foot down with a finality, absorbing all the forcce, whereas when running you're just tapping the ground, just enough to keep you upright as you leverage your momentum to the next step. So the impact on the ground itself is also designed to be less when running. I mentioned this to Dylan, and he remarked that when he was in Nepal, the Nepali porters and sherpas would tell him, Dylan, you go up the mountain like a Nepali, but you don't go down the mountain like a Nepali. Because when the Nepalis descend, they do run, even when--as porters--they're carrying these huge loads. And, according to Dylan, it's the most graceful thing you've ever seen. The only issue would be if you make a mistake then the chance of breaking an ankle or a leg is pretty high, and for that reason he sticks with the walking. But if he had the experience to pull it off, he would. And, if nothing else, *that*--the way the Nepalis do it--is probably a pretty good argument supporting the idea that, on downhills, running has less impact than walking.

-- KT had actually arrived the day before, set up his tent, then today, during the rains, went to his tent to discover it was floating on about 4 inches of water. He had inadvertantly set it up in a little depression that was now a lake. So he carefully pulled everything out of his tent, making sure not to tip the boat and soak everything, then carefully disassembled his tent and set it up in another, non-depression, site. But he was planning to wait another day to let things dry out: careful as he had been, stuff was still wet. I sensed that he felt a bit down about this: he had wanted to leave today but now would end up leaving tomorrow after-the-sun at the earliest, and I tried to reassure him that he was making a smart decision. To get stuck out on the mountain with a bunch of wet gear didn't sound like a good idea: better to get stuck here, in civilization, where if something goes dramatically wrong you can always retreat to four walls and a roof!

-- Evidently I have a doppleganger: Abby's Person was at VVR, and at one point he stopped me and said, I just want to thank you for giving me those bars on the trail the other day. And I said, hmm, I don't remember doing that, you must be thinking of someone else. And he was a bit confused, then a bit embarrassed that he had mixed me up with someone else, but in retrospect, if I have a doppleganger who's also a nice guy, well, that's a good thing to my mind. Gives me something to live up to!

-- Given the weather, I did consider hiking out of VVR, which Dylan found incredulous. You're seriously thinking of going back on trail, he asked. And, yeah, actually I was, because my experience with poor weather is to hike out of it. That's what we did back at Mike's Place, for example, and it had *worked*. And on our way in, while this valley was threatened with clouds and thunder, looking across the lake towards the trail, those mountains were still in sunshine. So maybe, similar again to Mike's Place, the weather *was* better back on trail. And I really didn't want to camp in the mud. In the end, inertia kicked in and I stayed but, yes, for an hour or so while the afternoon was still young, it was an honest possibility.

-- At the end of the night, as I was getting ready to head to bed, I bumped into a couple at the outside area and they recognized me. Hey, it's you!, they said, the guy who's always ahead! Wait, what, I said, you must have me confused with someone else. No, they said, it's definitely you! And I recognized them: Cookie and I had met this couple back at the junction to Mount Whitney: they had summited Whitney during the storm and were getting back onto the JMT just as we were heading into Crabtree Meadows. Evidently, since then they kept seeing me, and always ahead, and they kept asking themselves, how the heck did that guy get ahead of us again! And just when they finally said, ok, we're ahead now, we saw him heading over Kearsarge into town while we were heading in, so now we're ahead, and then suddenly I would pop up a few days later and they would exclaim, wait, how did he get ahead again?! And now, here at VVR, here I was again! They were very nice about it, though; it's not that they resented me or anything, just that there was this touchstone that kept, somehow someway, being ahead of them. They were JMTers, so likely I'll see them again somewhere up the line. Oh, and their names: Mango and P--, hmm, P-something (ack, I've already forgotten one of the names!).