I wake up at 6AM and get a move on, today’s weather is perfect. 63F and sunny all day, I make a deal with my self, since it’s a short day I must have 4 breaks today.
I start off solo and eventually Seal catches up, he’s pushing a 27 mile day today so he can position him self for Whitney. We chat for an hour and decide to take our first break.
Him being a young engineer and me being an older engineering director, we bond over wtf are we going to do after this? I tell him he’s fine. At 27, you can go get any engineering job to pay the bills when you’re done, then figure out what you want to do. Me on the other hand? I feel I’m washed up as a functional engineer, but I don’t think I want to go back to managing large engineering teams. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, maybe only fans?
We get up and get moving again, he tells me he’s got to dig a hole and take a crap. “Brother we just stopped you could’ve went then!” I say to him. But I get it, I don’t have the best stomach, so when you got to go you got to go.
We keep going up the trail and make good progress, we see two F22s flying actually below us. Wow, we’re at 10,500’ feet. They must be below 7,000, getting in that good practice. Seven garmins me “bro the jets!” I laugh and respond “good old American tax dollars baby!”
We hit a point where it’s lunch time and I tell Seal I’ll see him later. He is skipping lunch since he has to do a lot more miles than I do today. Today’s actually a leisure day for me. Yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Dallas aka Pine Cone because he carried one of those HUGE pinecones over 100 miles planned this stretch. I mean like me Wolf or Seven did ZERO planning this section. Pine Cone nailed it, all I needed to know is how many days of food do I need?
The only thing I didn’t like was doing a 11 day food carry at 11,000 feet. He wants to hit VVR and mailed himself a package there. I did not, and initially planned to skip it because I thought it would still be closed. So I altered the plan to five, I’m going to cut off at Kearsage pass and head into Bishop to resupply, jump back on trail and then catch up. I feel I can move better, and faster with less weight than suffering it out for 11 days.
I absolutely struggle at higher altitudes, I fought for my life in Colorado when I hiked a 8 day section with my buddy Brock and his father in law. It’s the only time in my life my Apple Watch was giving me warning because my heart rate was 175+. Nausea, headache, dizziness. No thanks.
Granted, I’m in much better shape than I was in 2021, but I still don’t want to think I’m “in serious shape” I can hike yes. But as far as heavy breathing my cardio and VO2 max are slacking, now my day to day life lives is in zone 2 maybe 3 for a bit. Almost never zone 4.
So I made the extremely hard decision to split up from my trail fam and do the side quest to Bishop. But that’s later this week, I need to get there first in a few days.
I sit in a nice little area and I fire up some rice medley for lunch. Knorr knocked it out of the park with this one. By far my favorite selection from their lineup. Some electrolytes and then I’m back on the move again. About 25 minutes after lunch I was done with the climbs for the day, all down hill from here. Nice!
I start cruising, nice, easy trail with some snowy patches. Like an idiot, I miss the last water source, ugh, now I’m a mile too far to go back. I’ll skip dinner and brushing my teeth tonight I guess? I Garmin Seven and tell him to grab an extra liter for me and that I’m an idiot! He says “Fact,I got you”
I make great time the last few miles into the trail junctions that’s where we are camping tonight. There’s three people there sitting down. A couple from Seattle and a guy from Sweden. They’re going down to Cottonwood Pass to head into Lone Pine. Nice, I got good weed at Sage and Fire in Lone Pine a couple weeks ago. They thank me for the tip.
We chat for a bit and tell each others stories from the trail, and just like that they pack up to head off to grab a hitch, for them it’s still a few miles down into camp, tonight then a few more miles till a road.
I set my tent up in a beautiful area, Wolf, Pine Cone and Seven walk in all at separate times and do the same. We enjoy dinner and relax for a while because it’s early. I throw on my spikes and test them out, it’s been almost two months since I’ve used them.
After I head to bed and rewatch a movie. Captain Ron, “Isn’t this great!”
The Pacific Crest Trail 