Day 90: Mile 1027.7 - 1048.9
Today was a big day.
First: we did big miles--21+ miles!--at that at 8000 to 9000 feet elevation. Imagine if the trail had been at 6000 feet: we could probably have hit 25+ miles. This is huge because, well, miles! But even more importantly, it gives hope that once we truly get out of the Sierras, we'll be able to get in the big miles needed to get to Canada by October 1st. (And yes, in case you're wondering, by this point, the calcuations have started in earnest and the numbers--admittedly--don't look good.)
Second: well, let me give some context. The trail today was a lot of going through woods, up and down hills, until reaching a meadow of sorts where the trees broke and instead of tall trunks, colorful wildflowers prevailed. Usually with a little creek flowing through, often disjointed into multiple streams. And that was the day until the big climb towards the end, up to the saddle above Noble Lake. It was on the climb up the saddle that I first noticed the smell of smoke in the air: we guessed this was the smoke from the Henry Fire south of us, being carried up by the winds. We crossed over to the north side of the saddle, headed towards Ebbetts Pass, and still the smoke smell persisted, and the far-away visibility was even worse. Hmm, likely the winds were blowing the smoke into this vale, and then swirling around and trapping it. So when, as we were descending some switchbacks, I saw a day-hiker coming up the other way, I resolved to ask him what the smoke was like up ahead.
Only instead the day-hiker turned around and looked up and said, charlie! Wait, I recognize that voice: that's Dan Chikami's voice. How can is possibly be out here?
Well, because he's out here! Randomly! What in the world? I hurried down to him, and then we bumped into Amie (his spouse) just a bit below. It turns out Amie had planned a road trip a while back--mostly visiting Highway 50 (the Loneliest Highway) and Great Basin National Park, and being remote, well, Dan would of course have to add some ghost towns along the way (Dan has a thing for ghost towns and the visceral end of dreams)--and looking at the itinerary, Dan had noted that it passed close to the PCT. Hey, I wonder if charlie will be out there? Do you think we'd be able to meet him on the trail? And they had followed my progress on the Garmin and saw that they had a chance: if I continued all the way to Highway 4 and Ebbetts Pass today, rather than stopping at a lake or somesuch, then they would be able to drive up the Highway and bump into me.
Without any prior knowledge on my part.
And so they arrived, and parked, and headed up the trail in my direction. Evidently they asked a bunch of hikers about me (and one said, why is everyone asking about charlie today--I'm guessing that was Ashley) (see below), and it sounded like I had stopped at a lake (I had--Noble Lake--to get water) but may be continuing down. So they continued hiking up towards the saddle and, maybe a mile or so from the lake, found this guy in bright green headed down.
It was pretty surreal. In fact, I'm still not sure it processes properly in my head. To find two old friends, seemingly at random, on the trail in the middle of nowhere (I mean, look at Highway 4: it's a single-lane road--well-paved but still single lane--without even a dividing line, in the middle of the mountains somewhere), it just doesn't quite make sense. I don't know what the expression on my face was when I first realized it was Dan, likely something blank, because that was a bit how I felt. A reset had been pushed and there's no real reaction to that, it's just default to bland factory settings. And as we walked back down to the Highway and we talked, I found myself falling back into old patterns, talking to Dan as if three months hadn't passed, about things like the kids, and the control system of the proposed hydration robot, and oh did you get a chance to look at which of Julius Smith's books I have, because I wanted to look into that acoustic beamforming problem for that art panel you're putting together, and I want to check up on how to properly model an acoustic medium, and surely that's in one of Julius' books. It was strange, talking as if we had talked about this just yesterday, picking up pretty much exactly where we had left off.
And when we got to Highway 4, Dan brought the car around and just gave away all the stuff he and Amie had brought: random foodstuffs, some drinks. And then Dylan and Uno, and then AC/DC and Outlast, came around (actually Uno had been with us on much of the way down, spoke with Amie some I think), and all shared in the sudden, inadvertant trail magic. Which was good: AC/DC had read a Guthook comment about trail magic from a couple weeks ago, but the comment said the trail angels would be back on this day, only we would have gotten to the parking lot late and so probably would have missed it even it *had* been back (and no guarantee of that), but still she got trail magic anyway. And it was good, getting to not only see Dan and Amie again, but also to see them happy to share their bounty (that's what civilization brings: a sheer bounty--you may think it's just a bag of Cheez-Its but, let me tell you, to a thru-hiker it's a *bounty*). They even offered to take out our trash, an offer we promptly took! (If you want to make a hiker happy, bring food, bring ziplocs, and offer to take out their trash--that's the trifecta!) It was just an amazing visit, and I'm not sure I understand even now just how amazing it was. And it was all the better, I think, for having been shared.
Other stuff happened today: today was the first day we started smelling the smoke from the fires, although I thought it was the fire behind us (but it may be one of the ones ahead of us?). Today was the day where we came to lake that Dylan *didn't* swim in. Today was the day we camped at a lake that where many of the campsites were already taken, so we made our own little spot at the narrow top of a ridge, where we managed to tuck in all three tents. But the big thing of today was meeting Dan and Amie and, while I know intellectually about their trip and the inReach and how they found me, really, how did they find me?!
-- Campsite > Boulder Lake Junction > Paradise Valley Junction > Wolf Creek Trail Junction > Saddle above Noble Lake > Noble Lake > Highway 4 (Ebbetts Pass) > Sherald Lake
-- Today I met Ashley "Mariposa". I had left early, so split from everybody else, and had stopped at a creek for lunch. My spot was a bit off trail, so I put my poles on the trail edge, pointing towards where I was, and put some sticks in a "C" pattern next to them. She saw them as she passed. Are you charlie?, she called out. Yeah, I said, and walked back over to the trail. Dylan and them said that they were going to have lunch at the falls, she said. Ok, I said, wait, which falls? And she showed me on Guthooks. But the falls may be disappointing, she warned, and continued on. I would pack up--I had thought to eat lunch here but now changed my plans--and hiked over to the falls, which I nearly missed (they were indeed "disappointing" in that they were barely flowing--just wet rocks--made little sound and I would have missed them if I haven't been checking Guthooks) and who should I see there but Ashley, eating lunch in the shade of a copse of trees. So I joined her, and talked a bit. Turns out she's a music teacher, piano, classical tradition (have you ever taught jazz, I asked, and she said, yeah I can teach them the basics--7 chords, a couple progressions--but after that I refer them to someone else). She operates out of the LA region--plenty of students there--and also does some composition work. She enjoys the composition work too (and from what little I've done of that, it *is* pretty fun), and would do more, but she does it by commission so it depends on what comes in. But I think she's the second person I've met on trail doing music as a profession? The first was Beans, back at Walker Pass, who is a composer, and I've certainly met folks with musical talent (i.e., Dean), but it's more rare than (for some reason) I expect.
-- Today I met Heavy Pack, who evidently was pro-gamer--playing Warcraft III--back in the day. Went by the name Tak3r. But I met him as Heavy Pack, actually back at Kennedy Meadows North, where he managed to get free meals by offering to take photos of the place for their website. Heavy Pack is here from Europe, doing the PCT, but basically hitting the highlights: I think his visa is only for a limited time, so he can't do the whole trail per se. So he is finishing up this section, after which he'll move on up to Washington. He got his name because, well, his pack is heavy: he has a laptop in there, which he uses to edit videos on the trail. And he has a pretty fancy camera to go with it. But a heavy pack notwithstanding, he's still a pretty fast hiker and, if he didn't stop for photos all the time, would certainly be faster than me! A very gregarious fellow, makes conversation easily, jumps into social groups even more easily, and is friendly enough that no one cares that he does but accepts him happily: from what I've seen, that's Heavy Pack!
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