Day 88: Mile 1009.9 - 1016.9

If you felt wistful leaving the granite peaks and conifer forests and hidden meadows of the Sierras, well, this morning proved that non-Sierra places have something to show as well.

We woke early and headed out early because we wanted to catch the 10:30am shuttle from Sonora Pass to Kennedy Meadows North and it was a 7-mile hike to the Pass. But as we continued along the Land of Barren Slopes, the views started opening up. And far below, I could see where the gray stone and gravel of the mountain ended and the green began coming in, first around little lakes, then following the outlets of those lakes down the mountains, into the green below. (There was some question as to why the trail opted to stay up here, around the barren mountain peaks, rather than going down there where there was water and cover and other good things, but that's neither here nor there.) And, in contrast to the Sierras, you could see so much farther: you could start to feel the shape of the land. It reminded me of the early days on the trail, in the deserts, where you could see for miles and miles. Only here, instead of deserts, sure the higher elevations were bare (but also decorated with intricate rock formations and fabulous shapes), but the lower elevations were green and sparkled with water. And as we headed along the ridges, and eventually down into the green, I thought, yes, we're not in the Sierras anymore. But this scenery, this speaks to me, and I'm glad I'm here.

Also, the trail was much smoother and easier to hike than the Sierras--nothing near as technical as the National Park section of the Sierras!

We did make it in time to catch the shuttle, and so are now at Kennedy Meadows North. They have dormitory type rooms for hikers here--4-5 beds a room--but I've opted to stay at the campsite instead. It's slightly cheaper and more private (I get my own "room", even if it is of sil-nylon and I had to put it up myself), but I've been feeling a bit of a cold coming on the past couple days, and didn't want to spread it. So I'm by myself. Kennedy Meadows North, though, is a pretty fabulous place. The staff is all extremely nice, the facilities are setup for hikers (for example, you're charged for the laundry machines with the campsite, and then just use the machines: nothing coin-operated), the resupply is good, and the food is good. I know I don't usually talk about towns per se--I mostly go over logistics--but Kennedy Meadows North is a great spot, and if you can get a cabin here (evidently they're booked almost a year in advance), would probably make for a great vacation homebase.

But speaking of logistics:

-- I shipped out my bear canister today, replaced it with two ursacks instead. Should make for lighter weight but also easier packing of the backpack--that bear canister is awkwardly bulky!

-- I shipped out some warm weather gear: an extra wool hoodie, an extra thermal long-sleeve. It's been hot out here--at Kennedy Meadows, if I wasn't in the shade in the afternoon I would be burning up--and I don't need the extra weight.

-- I finally changed my pants. I've been meaning to get new pants since at least as far back as Lone Pine, almost a month ago. My old pants were 1) too big (my waist has shrunk), 2) have holes in the pockets (which I patched with some Tenacious Tape but still, I worry about stuff dropping through), 3) have holes at the bottom of the pant legs (eh, those are ok: extra ventilation), 4) have broken zippers, so no longer convert from pants into shorts. This last one is especially annooying, since it means I was wearing long pants throughout the Sierras in record heat. I tried rolling up my pant legs--old-school style--but then the zippers were so weak they would burst, and they're a pain to rethread back onto the pants. I had checked out the gear stores in Lone Pine and Bishop looking for a new pair, but never could find them in my size, so finally gave up and ordered them from REI, sent them to Terry's place, and asked him to ship them to me in Mammoth. And REI said they would arrive on Friday so Terry could ship them to Mammoth on Monday, but then that got delayed to Saturday, then Sunday, then finally they arrived Monday night, *after* Terry had mailed my resupply to Mammoth, so now it's been a month before I got them replaced. Hopefully this new pair will last longer; I'll certainly be more ginger with the conversion zippers!

-- I replaced my Sawyer squeeze. The flow rate on my Sawyer had become terrible--I often get more water than I need and then offer it to folks, and Dylan took me up on it once and used my Sawyer. And commented that the flow rate was really bad. And I figure, it's taking 15 minutes to filter 2 L, if I can halve that, I'm saving 7 minutes per filtering. I filter about 3 times a day, so that's about 20 minutes a day. If the flow rate stays good for even just 1 week, that's 140 minutes, or 2 hours and change. So let me ask you this: how much would you pay to get 2 hours of your life back? Two hours to be productive instead of squeezing water from a bag? If your answer is $40 or more, then you--like me--should buy a new Sawyer. (I should note that I backfilter the Sawyer at every town, but even then eventually the flow rates drop. As Dylan pointed out--and he has much more experience with the things than I do--while he hates plastic waste, after about 1000 miles the Sawyers are effectively done: the flow rate is too slow to make them viable anymore. So it's about that time.)

-- The rest is some odds and sods. Got rid of my extra paper journal, my extra ditty bag (that I had just refound!), camp soap sheets (not allowed to use soap in the wilderness out here), my bottle of olive oil (too messy, not worth it), a flamingo I got as a gift from another hiker (this was back at Paradise Valley Cafe and I've never seen him since; keeping the flamingo in my backpack, though, is just asking to lose it), and the medical instructions from the ER (I photographed them, so have the info without the weight). A pretty good housecleaning, if I do say so myself!

-- I did also repair my CNOC bag, which has sprung a little leak. Outlast uses Aquaseal to fix such things--it's almost like a clear epoxy--and let me use some of his; I'll let it cure overnight and hope it works. But I remember when I spoke to Gavin last year before starting the trail, he said that some things *will* happen: you *will* break a trekking pole, and your CNOC bag *will* spring a leak. These are *known* elements, so just deal with them; don't be surprised.

And that was the day. We ate a lot: breakfast when we got in (which was big and good), dinner in the evening (where I got a New York steak that looked large--as big as my shoe--but then I finished it and could still eat more), and I had the pint of ice cream too. The day was strange: we got in pretty early so I thought I would have time for my to-do list which wasn't too long to start with, but the time went by anyway and I did find myself, at the end of the day, having to choose between more sleep or more writing. I've taken some notes--you're reading the filled-in version, hopefully--but I think I'm going to skew sleep tonight.

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Some notes:

-- Campsite > Sonora Pass > Kennedy Meadows North

-- I continued my tradition of eating ice cream when I get into town, only this time instead of getting a small bar or ice cream "snack", no, I learned my lesson, and got a little personal pint. And took it outside and ate it all in one sitting. *That's* how I did it back in Mammoth, and that's when I learned that *that's* how you do it!

-- Today I met Windbreak, who actually had just gotten his trail name yesterday (on the Barren Slopes, he had picked out a cowboy camping spot that I had passed--it was  small flat spot, just down from the trail, with a semicircle of jutting stone that provided maybe a foot or two of relief). Windbreak is a younger guy--I think he graduated with his degree in construction management last year or so, but very enthusiastic about his new job (he had originally planned to take the time to hike the PCT in 2020 after graduating then start, but because of COVID, swapped the two), and about sailing. His job is a lot on the tech side of construction, where it seems a lot more 3-D modelling is being brought to bear, both in the design and verification of buildings. Lots of looking at the models, then calling in various teams and saying, hey, so it turns out we routed two things in the same place and that's not going to work, so let's figure out a solution. The other benefit is when the model is combined with photo-grammetry (or something like this--I forget the exact term), but when the model is combined with a 3-D model of the site itself constructed from a couple of drone flights. Add that to augmented reality, and you can "see" the building on the site before it's even built! So Windbreak was pretty excited about all this stuff, all the new things that can be done as technology winds its way into a very tradition-based industry.

-- But the other thing Windbreak was really excited about was sailing. He's from Florida and dreams of sailing the Intercoastal--a line between the mainland and the Atlantic that goes thorough a lot of bays and inlets, and goes from Florida up to Newfoundland. Or you can take a turn in New York, head up the Hudson to the Great Lakes, then (possibly a land hop is needed here) get onto the Mississippi and take it back down to the Gulf to form a loop. He had also spoken to someone on trail, and she had recommended buying a catamaran (sp?) which he described as two tubes with a trampoline in between, and sailing out to the Bahamas and just taking his time, skipping from island to island. The benefit here is that a catamaran is cheaper--just $5k--whereas a real boat would be more expensive, running around $40k. But Windbreak clearly loves sailing, he has ideas on routes to take, and he's young and has the time to do it, so I think he's in good shape.

-- I will say that Windbreak has lots of ideas--generates them pretty readily. For example, one of his hiking partners has a PhD in mosquitos, another is going back to design strawberry-picking robots, and he came up with an idea to combine the two. For him, the tricky bit is execution, but that's one of the reasons he's out on the trail: it's an ultimate test of execution. If he can do this, then he can do the execution for any idea he concocts. (For me, I did say that if you want execution, find someone who does that very well and partner up: lots of startups have two key personalities--the visionary who imagines what to do, and the execution person who makes it happen. Think Steve and Steve of Apple, for example. Both roles are incredibly valuable to small businesses, usually both are necessary, and commonly each is fulfilled by a different person--it's rare to find someone who can handle both.)

-- Today I met Cheez-It, an older guy, who I had originally met yesterday, but who I got to talk to here in the camping area of Kennedy Meadows while we waited for dinner. Cheez-It is retired from the constructions business, and didn't get into hiking until a few years ago. He's definitely tried thru-hiking before--the last time, he got here and rushed out, only to find himself so tired he couldn't hike. But Cheez-It--like lots of older folks I've gotten to talk to--has a lot to say. 

* On hiking: it's good to go with a group, Cheez-It said, success rates are higher (mostly because the group dynamics helps keep people positive). But one time when he went with a group but the group split up and he was so devastated he couldn't hike alone. So now he hikes alone to start with.

* On work: don't do a job that it takes only 6 months to learn, because eventually someone else will come along who's willing to do it and work harder, complain less, and get paid less. He saw this happen with the construction business, and while he managed to survive for a while, it was hard and he eventually had to get out. (There's a corollary here with what my father says about design versus management in engineering, but Ill save that for anothr time.) At this point, Cheez-It advises all his nieces and nephews (he doesn't have any family of his own) to get college degrees.

* On music: Cheez-It's a self-taught pianist--as he says, I don't care what it is, you do it for 10,000 hours, you're going to be able to do something. For music, he likes players who have a distinct style, even if they're not the most technically brilliant. For him, style is the most important. He's a big fan of James Booker, out of New Orleans--who I haven't heard but will check out--who was not only a brilliant technical player (he said that when Booker was in the room, no one else would even touch the piano), but also had a strong style. And even guys like Randy Newman (sp?), who's not considered a great player: Cheez-It likes Newman because nobody else sounds like him, Newman has style. So that's the most important thing for Cheez-It: the style of the playing, rather than the virtuosity. (For my part, all I could bring up was Bill Evans--who's harmonies are school unto themselves--and Glenn Gould's playing of the Goldbergs. What makes Gould so good, Cheez-It asked. Well, it's that he's the first in the modern era to interpret Bach with emotion, with fire, and still has the technique to keep the lines distinct. To which Cheez-It mentioned that classical is really good, really great music, but it requires more from the listener: the listener really needs to learn to appreciate it. And while they used to teach music when he was in grade school, they don't anymore.)

* On aging: Cheez-It says that he still thinks of himself as 25, it's only when he looks in the mirror that he sees his age. But he also doesn't have children or any responsibilities, as he put it, and looking at his peers, he felt that those who were weighed down by a lot of responsibilities, he could see the age on them. So that was the way he stayed young.

* Incidentally, Cheez-It has had the most accurate guess of my age on the trail. While we were talking, it came up and he looked at me and said, what are you, about 40? And that's about right, actually a bit older at 43, but most people are off my much more than a couple years!

* On people: Cheez-It noted that the group I was with--Dylan and Uno and AC/DC and Outlast--were nice people, really nice people. Although, he said, most of the people on the trail are really nice people. And really positive--those who are negative don't make it very far. But he thought about it some, and concluded that 99% of the people in met in life in general were pretty nice people. Now, he caveated, he'd never met any uber-rich people, so maybe that'd be different, but for the people he's met, 99% are pretty nice people.

* On clothing: Cheez-It noted that I wear a bright green shirt, which is easy to recognize. That's a good idea, he said, looking down at his more standard getup of beiges and grays.
* On exhaustion: The last time Cheez-It attempted the PCT (it seems he's attempted it multiple times), he got as far as Ebbets Pass (which is about 30 miles north of here) and then stopped. By that point, he was just so exhausted that he couldn't hike anymore. So this time, here at Kennedy Meadows, he was planning on taking a zero to recuperate. You don't even know you're tired, he said, because every day you wake up and the adrendaline kicks in and you want to go hike. But you're actually exhausted. So he's taking the zero; was considering taking it at the campground just outside Kennedy Meadows (Baker Campground, I believe it is), which is slightly cheaper (and he should be able to get a senior discount). But I think his advice on exhaustion, and not noticing exhaustion, is fair. I know that, for me, as long as I'm moving, I'm usually feeling ok, but when I stop, I start to feel the tiredness. I especially feel it in the mornings, when I wake up and the brain kicks in and says go go go!, but I feel the body hesitating and saying, go back to bed. I rarely do--have to make miles--but that may be indicative that maybe, sometimes, I should. The current plan is to take a zero, but in South Lake Tahoe (which has more amenities) (and is also more expensive) (well, you can't have it all) rather than here in Kennedy Meadows, so just need to hold out for a few more days and then I'll get that longer break and chance to rest. (Hopefully; hopefully I don't just end up spending the zero day running errands like I usually do...)