Kennedy Meadows

Today I wake up 30 miles away from Kennedy Meadows. I had planned on doing it in 2 days but I feel like I want it done today. There’s some weather coming in and I just feel like putting down hard mileage today and getting it over with. I’m not in a rush, but I feel bored doing 15 and camping by noon, doing more leaves nothing left for tomorrow. I’m in a weird spot.

The morning starts at 5:15AM with packing up my stuff. The clouds and mist are rolling over the ridge line and it is cold out! Talking freezing cold. I start off past Sevens tent and wake him up on the way by. “Get up buddy let’s go, I’ll see you in Kennedy Meadows… just kidding maybe.”

I leave camp and it’s 3 miles uphill to get over the ridge. Let’s get this done asap as my hands are freezing and I’m getting wet. My gloves are buried in my bag and I’m not getting them.

After the ridge line and some horrendous wind I dropped down into a valley where I had breakfast under a huge dead tree. It would’ve been a sweet campsite if the tree wasn’t dead

After I eat my breakfasts I’m moving again. I get to the third water source and run into two section hikers Apple Pie who works at the outfitters in Kennedy Meadows and her friend. We chat for a bit and she tells me we are crazy if we enter the Sierras in May. I agree but I’m going to.

After we exchange info I tell them I’m trying to get to town today and need to get moving again! Apple pie says good luck and says I can definitely do it.

As I continue up the trail I see more planes leaving the airbase. Today it looks like B2 bombers flying overhead. How awesome to watch them do their thing and me not get blown up.

After watching the planes for a minute or two I’m moving again. I can only afford 3 breaks today if I want to get to town before nighttime. After a few hours I’ve hit mile 700, what an accomplishment.

I let out some fuck yeahs! A tear or two and I keep going. I’ll celebrate later. 3 more miles till town.

As I try to finish up the last few miles I see signs of my first bears. Poop and prints near each other, something I want nothing to do with right now.

Seeing the poop makes me say no way I am camping here tonight. I pick up my bear can tomorrow at Grumpies I’ve been sleeping with my food until now. As I round the next corner I see the S Kern river. Awesome to see an abundance of water now.

Stealthy texts me over sat phone “yo Mouse some guys selling hotdogs till 5PM at Kennedy Meadows general store how many do you want?”

That’s all the motivation I need. I’m 3 miles out and moving at a 3.5-4MPH pace now. I tell him I’ll be there at 4:45PM! Let’s get a jog on.

I take the final turn and see a wide open meadow to the main road and a bridge. Stealthy is no where to be found to pick me up. There’s a guy fly fishing here, he says the golden trout are on fire here.

I say fuck it I’ve already done 30 miles and walk the 2.5 miles of road walk to the General Store and meet up with him there. He has 2 hotdogs waiting for me. What a guy, this is two days this week he’s hooked me up with food.

All said and done I smashed a 31 mile day, my legs feel amazing. My feet feel like they are on fire, my minds ecstatic that I just walked 703 miles from Mexico. I’ve had a lot of alone time to think a lot of shit through over the last month. It’s a lot of emotions to handle at once. I’ll process this over the next week that I have off. It’s too early to enter the sierras unless you want to deal with heavy snow. I’m all set with that stuff. I’m going to head east a bit and enjoy some more desert terrain and head in a few weeks from now.

After meeting Stealthy we head to Grumpy Bears and grab my package. Both Kennedy Meadows General Store and the Grumpies are dead empty. Almost no hikers here. It’s kindve eerie being the only one here staying.

I see Stickers grabbing a beer at the bar. He’s leaving Monday and heading into the sierras. We chat for a bit and then he takes off.

After hanging out a bit we head by the outfitters and then leave Kennedy Meadows. There’s not much to do here in a population of 200 town and rather than sit here for 2 weeks bored I am grabbing a rental car in Ridgecrest and going on a road trip.