The route down to Mammoth was not easy, but the route from here to the trail was even harder.   There was one bus per day which would get us to the closest town to Kennedy Meadows called InyoKern.   It would drop us at InyoKern’s landmark “Classic Burger”.  Guess that is the best Inyokern can do for a landmark anyway.

From there it was another 20 miles to Kennedy Meadows….and that is not a route  for hitching.    100 degrees in the desert waiting for hours just to see one car doesn’t sound like fun.   No bus service, no uber, no taxi.   It was time to look for a trail angel.   

There are several lists on the internet for trail angels by location.   I found a few in the area and started emailing.   Sure enough, within an hour a gal named April from Lake Isabella called me back.    She does a lot of hiker hosting and transport in the area.   She agreed to meet us at noon on the 16th.      

Surprisingly everything worked out perfectly.     Got up at 6, walked a couple miles to the bus pickup in Mammoth.    Had some breakfast, rode South to Inyokern with a collection of hikers and locals.   April picked us up just as we finished choking down Classic Burger’s finest.  

The ride with April was interesting.    She has been doing this stuff for a few years and has lots of stories.   She has a couple kids who seem to be used to all the chaos.  Soho gassed up her car then it was off to the races.    April drives, well, like a maniac.   On the way up the hill she is yapping away while speeding around blind curves laden with fallen rock from the hillside.   Lane management was not one of her strong suits either.    After a few minutes I just stopped worrying about it.  

The gal has a really good heart, but has had some tough times with her ex-husband, employment, etc.    She never asked for any money to take 2 hours out of her day to do this.   At the drop off, I gave her a C-note.    She tried to refuse it, then got all teary eyed.    Yet another wonderful soul helping PCT hikers.  

April drives off and the hiking starts.   Soho suggested 10 miles today, but I pushed for 14.    Feel like I’ve been off “work” for too long.   After being in NoCal/Oregon for so long, it bums me to be back in this crappy sand.    Feel like I’m going backward. 

 

At least the trail started ascending into some trees.   Of course there is plenty of burn around here in the sad little deserty mountain wannabe High Sierras.   

Hiking along with the music blasting, I crossed paths with another rattler.   This one was huge.   Thick as a coke can and hiding in a log with his nasty little snake face poking out on the trail.    God I F#5$g hate these things.   The snake recoiled into the log and wouldn’t come out even though I was banging the log with thrown rocks.   I could see his body  in the lower left, but didn’t come out in the picture very well.  I had to reroute a long way around him. 

After a couple climbs and short descents, the scenery got a little more interesting.   Huge meadows of grassland up here.  There are clusters of free ranging cows grazing.  

A little after 7pm, I made it to our campsite at the appropriately named Cow Creek.   Soho was already getting setup on a nice sandy spot next to the river.   There are dozens of swallows living under the bridge and they make constant passes next to us scooping up the bugs.   It is cool watching them, they sometimes fly inches above the water right in front of us.   Nice to have them around….the insects don’t stand a chance.  

The water is flowing fast, but is warm and tastes a little…uhh…cowish.   Made dinner and bedded down.   Was a good 14 miler today.  My damn feet hurt again, so I guess that is normal.   

 

 

Currently at my daughter’s new house in Portland.   Spending the next few days help her boyfriend’s Dad out on a construction project, buying some stuff from REI, and getting the return to work thing lined up.  

Plan is to get a flight to Mammoth on Monday.   At Mammoth, I’ll pick up my bear can, supplies, etc.   On Tuesday we will bus/hitch to Kennedy Meadows (mile 700) and head North into the Sierras.    Looking forward to getting that bit done while I’m still in decent shape.    

Next update will probably be around the beginning of September.   It is a long haul through the High Sierras.     Should have some good pictures!   

 

In the morning, the weird dude and his dog continued to mill around camp.   I pulled my tent, grabbed a couple granola bars, and left to eat on the trail.    Time to end this section and get a beer.

Ran into a reminder of why going any farther North will suck.

Here is reminder of what I will not accomplish this year.

Passed this shack on the way to a road crossing.    Found out later that Twigsy hiked there yesterday and found Captain Ramen.    He did a 34 mile day.    That guy can hike.

We got a some awesome trail magic right after this spot.   Cold Pepsi’s and Mountain Dews.   The guy who stocks it with his wife showed up to drop some more water.   He says they check it 3 times a week.   Wouldn’t accept any donations.    What a nice couple.  

Back into the woods, I started to run into lava rocks.   This will continue until Fish Lake.

I have to say, this turned out to be much easier than I expected.   The folks from the good state of Oregon have made this trail incredibly easy to walk.    I’ve no idea how they did it.   They must have hauled thousands of wheelbarrows of dirt and gravel to fill in this in.    It let me actually enjoy the scenery instead of of watching for the next twisted ankle. 

It is a cool section.   I which I had Rock Doc along to explain it to me.   It appears there were old flows here which had weathered and became tree filled.   Then more recently another explosion of Liquid Hot Magma has filled in the valleys.  

I was wondering where all this crap came from.   Turned a corner and saw this peak.   I suspect it might have something to do with it.

I was feeling better until I hit this sign at 2pm.   The 17 miles had gone by fast.    This was mile 1771.     

Soho showed up 30 minutes later.  The food and beer was good.    We sat around until 5:30 when Soho’s buddy Jim showed up.   He will put us up for the night then get us to a train to Portland in the morning.   

 

Last night it thundered, it flashed, and it rained twice…for about 10 minutes.   What a disappointment.    When I got out of my tent it was already dry.    Come on Oregon.  

I hit the trail a little before Soho and the Twig.  

Briefly ran into a few Lava rocks, but they fortunately disappeared.   I know that it is supposed to denser North of here.   I keep thinking about Hat Creek Rim and how badly that thing sucked.   

One thing that didn’t suck was that about 3 miles up the trail I ran into a pit toilet next to another trail head.   It was glorious.   Clean, fresh TP, some hand sanitizer for the day hikers.   Only bummer was that the splash-back danger from the soupy poo water at the bottom. 

Off to the trail for a day of walking.   I’m still in a funk.   I spent the morning analyzing it.   The original goal of hitting mile 2000 on August 19th no longer matters.   It bums me out since we were crushing miles to get there and were on track to beat that goal.   Now the Northward progress is going to end around 1770.   That is it.   I’ll be no closer to Canada this year.

Passed a couple of these

Almost stepped on this

 

Saw a bunch of meadows

Got reminded of who I am

And had lunch at a horse corral near a park.

Soho and I sat down for an hour break.   Twigsy sat separate from us and was studying his paper maps.   We had found out earlier that Captain Ramen was about 1 hour ahead of us.   Twig was hoping to find him somewhere on this stretch.   Since we are heading South soon, I knew what he was thinking.

Sure enough, about 15 minutes into the break, Twigsy jumps up, fist bumps us, and says goodbye.    He is going to tear ass up the trail to find his buddy.    That is how it often goes on the trail.    We hiked together for several weeks and now I’ll probably never see him again.   Good luck Twig.

That just added to my depression for the day.   I packed up and shuffled off around 1:30.   

Only positive for today was that somebody came through with a chainsaw and cut through all these trees that had fallen on the trail.

My funk continued as I reached our stopping point at 1753.   There is a spring near here to get water.   Some section hiker guy with his dog was already setup.   He talks to his dog constantly.   I’m just not into the weirdness right now.   I wish his stupid dog would dig a hole for them both to fall into.

Soho showed up shortly after me and we squished in next to the weird guy.   Later a south bounder showed up and cowboy camped with us.   He rated 7 on the douchebag scale.    That dog needs to dig a bigger hole.    The southie talked about all the smoke up north and how awesome he is.   He is going to finish by late October.    Whatever.  

I talked as little as possible and went to bed.  27 depressing miles today. 

 

Slow start today.    Turns out the Twigsy has a rule about hotels.   He wants to stay until they kick him out so he gets his money’s worth.    We didn’t leave for the trail until 11am.  

Ironman dropped us near Callahan’s and we road walked up to the trail head.    I was beginning to lose service on my phone, so I found a comfortable log by the trail to sit down and do some electronic business before hiking.   I had to let folks know that our eclipse meeting was off and had to order flowers for Alice’s birthday on the 11th.    All that took another hour.   

While looking over the Guthook maps of our route, I notice that I got a little recognition from the Optimistic Turtle.   heh.

Today is going to be one of those slow hiking days I think.    Just don’t have my mojo back yet.

Ran into a guy day hiking with his 10 year old son.   He wanted to chat and I didn’t want to hike so we spent 15 minutes together.   He was asking about the trail, the life, etc.    Wanted to know how to trail angel.   He had all sorts of ideas.   I told him to just buy a case of beer and a case of soda, put it in a cooler, and sit by a hot section of the trail.    It is not that complicated. 

My lackluster pace was further impeded by this.

The trail was flooded by these plants which needed picking.   Seemed that every hill climb required a five minute diversion to fill up.   If anyone asked why I was hiking so slow, they need only look at my fingers.   

Not much out here, but at least the trail is wide and well maintained.  

The smoke from nearby fires is getting trapped in the valleys, so what little views available are hard to enjoy. 

Thunder has been rolling the hills all afternoon.   There are some dark clouds heading toward the trail.    Ran into Twigsy and Soho a couple miles before our campsite.   Soho is trying to get service to check the weather.  I told him to look up…it’s going to rain.

Made it to our stopping point around 6.   Just a 10 miles day today.   Twigsy debating going on, but decided to camp with us.   Thunder got closer during dinner, so I dug a little trench around the tent and climbed in before the rain started.