The Pacific Crest Trail

I wake up at 5:30 and pack up, I head off and up the first hill, today’s another short day. Another 16 miles and I’ll be setting up early. The trail is two climbs and then 8 miles of downhill into camp.

It starts off in a beautiful forest with cliffs of granite around us. I stop for my first break and Seal walks up behind me. He says “hey how’s it going” and we start hiking together, his plans the same as mine today. We go 3 miles and sit for a bit, the altitude has us both breathing heavy.

The views start the change and snow starts to appear. As soon as we hit 10,000’ elevation its patches of snow. Luckily is firm and we can just walk right over it, we go another three miles and stop for lunch. We’re going to yard sale our gear and dry it out from the night prior.

As we’re chilling two German women walk by and we chat with them for a bit. One of them is fighting a shin splint, yikes I know that feeling back in Wrightwood. Luckily I got over it but I had to power through for probably 200 miles of hard stretching, ice and changing the way I walked.

They say goodbye and walk on and we keep hanging out. Seals a 27 year old engineer from Ohio who quit to do the trail. We hang for another half hour and Wolf walks into our hang out. Wolf sits down and starts to eat lunch too.

Ten minutes later Seven and Dallas walk in and we all hang for a few more minutes. After that we walked the remaining miles into camp and leap frogged each other till we got to Death Creek.

Overall the creek was stunning, we didn’t see any death, and it had ice cold water that tasted delicious. I pitched my tent in a flat spot and tucked in for the night, temp forecast is 38F. Almost ideal sleeping conditions if the dew point stays dry.

I spent last night in Ridgecrest at the Clarion inn waiting for Seven and Dallas to get in from their flights. They got here around 9PM, we figured that was too late to get a ride up to KMS. It’s about 45-50 minutes to get there and we’d be pitching in the dark. I organize a ride for this morning from a trail angel Amy. Amy picks us and 1 other hiker up and we’re on our way.

We head up the road to Chimney Creek Campsite and drop that gentleman off. He was heading north from there. We get back on the road and 20 minutes later we’re pulling into Grumpy Bears where we grab food and hang out for a bit.

After Grumpy’s we get a ride from a guy over to the Kennedy Meadows General Store. IMO it’s much cleaner there than at grumpies. I set up my tent in their camping area and prepare for a windy afternoon. After staking everything up and giving it the “earthquake test” I head over to the store to order some food and enjoy the WiFi.

We hit breakfast in the AM and then we’re off hiking by 9AM. Short day today of 17ish miles of uphill to our first campsite by a bridge. Dallas has a full plan that’s all laid out and I honestly don’t even know what it is. Something about a ten day food carry to VVR.

The trail heads through the last section of “desert looks” and then we come across the S Kern River. It’s beautiful. We see a group of people pitching their tents and decide to pitch too. We are now in the bubble of hikers.

I head out the next morning with the goal of another short day. These short days really feel like long days because they’re at altitude. 17 miles. I’m heading to Death Creek to camp there. I leave at 6am and try to beat the sun. I head off up the trail and cross a meandering creek a few times into a beautiful meadow. I leap frog a few hikers and decide to stop for breakfast.

I lay out my tyvek in the sun and enjoy the warm morning glow. I eat a bunch of junk and set a time for 20 minutes. Timer hits and I’m on my way again. It’s another 4 miles of uphill and then all downhill the camp, I run into Seal and he says he’s heading to the same spot. Roger lets roll.

We head off and say once we hit the top we’re going to yard sale and dry out our gear. He’s winded, he’s from Ohio and the altitudes not on his side. I feel the same, we make the last climb in the sun and then pick a nice spot for lunch.

As we’re having lunch Wolf Slayer walks in. Takes their gear off and kicks it too, another 35 minutes go by and Seven and Dallas roll in. We all chill for a minute and then start the decent to camp.

This was a fun walk and the first time I can remember all of us walking into a campsite together as a group. We usually all roll in at totally different times.

We gather around and eat dinner, chill, stretch watch the swollows fly and plan tomorrow’s camp site.

Oh the big trees of my life. Sequoia trees are surely a sight to see. We pull into the forest and immediately you feel small amongst them. I’ve been walking through 8’ pine trees but these just make those look like tooth picks.

I have 3 main things I want to do and see here, see the two generals (Grant and Sherman) and find a nice camp site for the evening. Off for number one, I see General Grant one of the largest trees and it’s huge. Girthy tree, there was almost no one here. Had the place to my self with one other couple, I took their photo and chatted for a moment. They were from Kentucky.

From there I drive over to see General Sherman the largest tree in the world. It’s a half mile walk down to trees locations. The road walk is absolutely slammed, I forgot I was in tourist town. I get to the tree and there is a ligit 20 person line for pictures. Wild. I skip the line and snag an empty photo and keep moving. I’m not waiting for a photo in front of a tree. Pictures honestly don’t do it justice, the tree is massive. I sit there for a moment and say “ I wonder how many things live inside that tree”

Now it’s a half mile back up hill to the car. On the way up hill there is multiple people sitting taking breaks. It’s at I think 7,000’ altitude and it shows. Most people can’t breath as well at that altitude. My self included, I suffer at high altitude. After the walk up we get in the car to go find camp. On the way there I stop to hike Moro rock. A pretty steep incline where we had amazing views of the entire sierras. I used peak finder to see where mount Whitney was. Overhead a fighter plane was doing his thing above us, hard to see him but we could hear him. We could even see the smog coming in from Asia according to the sign.

After this beautiful hike it was again off to find a nice campsite. We leave Sequoia boundary to find some random BLM land. Riverside today, I pitch my tent next to the rental Jeep and chill listening to the river run. I think I could shoot a Jeep commercial this week.

As I was cleaning up for bed something that scared the shit out of me happened. I stepped into the creek to soak my feet and looked up to see a huge coyote, or husky or possibly a wolf running down the trail staring at me. As I stand there frozen it eyes me, grunts and turns and runs away. “What the fuck was that?!” I yell to Greenhorn.

Wow, there was no one else around except for me and Greenhorn. Whose husky was that? There’s no one else camping here. We are like 25 miles down a forest road. Well when I googled are there wolves in California apparently one of the only places left that wolves are is right where we were. I think I saw a California wolf, it was absolutely huge and scared the hell out of me.

Wow oh wow Yosemite National Park. I honestly can’t even write enough to summarize these few days in Yosemite. But I’ll share a few things we did. Now, I have never been to Yosemite before but I have heard a lot about it. From watching tv growing up, to my dad talking about the big trees.

Heck when I worked at Markforged I worked with a kid Sean who went for vacation one summer on the company shutdown and the photos he showed me made me say “yup bucket list it.” Now I’ve never been a huge national park guy. Lines, people, man made trails, trash, it bugs me out to think we pay to get into nature. But, let’s give it a shot I say. That’s been my mentality this entire hike and it’s been correct so far.

I leave Kernville at 6AM and start the 4 hour 39 minute drive. It’s a windy road on the edge of a cliff for majority of the drive north. I left early as I never sleep in and there’s almost no-one on the road. Would be wonderful in a little sports car. In my Jeep it handles it fine as well. This is also the first time I’ve driven a gasoline car in a while, so it’s an adjustment all around.

I get a bar of service and text Greenhorn. I’m meeting him in Yosemite. “Yo you want anything at Vons?”

“Dude grab some hot dogs and etc to grill.” He says.

I got you bud. I hit Vons and food shop. Blown away by the apple prices. Gala apple index? 2.99/lb non organic. Expensive town, things have gotten more expensive as we’ve gone north. The cashier says Apple prices are the highest they’ve ever been. No shit.

I get back on the road and realize I won’t have service from here on out. I switch to my Garmin and send Greenhorn a location to meet up. “Meet me here. I’ll be there at 1PM.” I need to replace my Garmin mini 1, it never works.

I pull up to the entrance in Yosemite and the woman at the gate is super nice. 36$ to enter and she tells me the rules and regs and reminds me I’m in bear country. Do not leave anything in the cars or the bears will break in and have a field day inside the car.

I meet up with Greenhorn as he’s fishing, he says he’s not having any luck. We can go start to explore. First we head up to see El Capitan from below. And holy shit is it wild, we head to the bottom of the rock face to see if we can get up it. Yeah nah yeah no. It’s even more wow when you get up to the rock wall and start to climb up.

Some climbers show us the ropes and lets us mess around as they get their gear together. One of them recognizes my accent and says he went to school in Boston.”Tufts” he says. Imagine that. .

After we head to the camp I reserved for us tonight, check into our #76 and cook food, I hang out Pickles, Shortcut, Patches, Greenhorn and Stealthy. It’s a solid night around the fire. Meteor shower tonight from Haley’s comet too let’s go!

The next morning I wake up and am completely packed up by 6. Antsy as hell to go hike, I tell Greenhorn let’s go dude let’s go. He wants to do Half Dome today, again lets go dude it’s 5300’ of uphill and like 16 miles round trip after a 45 minute drive to the parking lot. The cables are down so we are raw dogging it up.

We get to the trail head at 8:30 and start off. It’s about 2 miles of “paved” type road or trail until we hit the switch backs. Our legs in great shape we just start counting the number of people we pass. Some people look like they’re going to die. I feel ya.

We get to the first falls Vernal falls, pretty cool, then to the second falls. Even cooler, there’s a few places were we could’ve filtered water if we needed it. As thru hikers were keen to “find water.” We keep going past the last bathroom and say ok now let’s get to half dome. Another mile and we see a small ranger station and start to climb. I get to the point of “stairs” and say wtf. This is another mile of 1500’ climb. Let’s go what a slog.

We get above the stairs and the rocks are just slick, wet and straight up onto the sub dome. Then finally we get to the bottom of half dome. And wow, what an awesome hike up and climb. Pretty sketch but we got it done. We turn to leave and start the decent back beneath the tree line.

After Half Dome it was back down the 9 miles of trail then 45 minutes drive to camp to cook up steaks and relax for the night by the fire.

I wake up the next morning and decide to leave solo, everyone else is “sleeping in” and IMO wasting one of the best weather days. I head to hike Upper Yosemite Falls and spend the day there. The hike is 6.5 miles and I did it in 3.25 hours.

Even enjoyed a nice lunch and nap at the top. I tossed my tyvek down in a nice rack crack and nestled right in. Was chilly weather at that elevation, but warm sun. Even met a father son combo at the top of Yosemite point who were visiting as well. I gave them my info and where they could read my blog and they were off. Hope yall had a hell of a Yosemite trip too!. I ran into them later on on the way down too. If you’ve read here before, you’ve heard I eat up the downhill.

Afterwards I took it slow going back to the car and walked by the post office and mailed some post cards to my friends. I’m a sucker for post cards, I mail my self a blank one from every town stop. Yosemite had some good post cards. Cheap too.

On one other day I woke up and crushed 3 easy hikes while the others did laundry and showered, one of which was to the spires and then the groves of sequoias. Like most hikes in Yosemite a lot of vertical.

Afterwards I sat in El Capitan meadows and just chilled. Took a dirt nap on my tyvek, talked with some other visitors and really enjoyed a slow day for once.

One thing I’m battling is this is suppose to be my “off week” but I’ve still hiked 90 miles in 4 days. One family let me use their binoculars and we watched the climbers climb el cap. He tells me he hiked the PCT in the 70s and was out here road tripping with some friends. He hit all the right questions to ask me. Biggest one about shoes. How many pairs of shoes have I worn through so far.

As the day ends I head back over to camp to meet back up with the others and then I settle into number 80 and set up shop for the night. The reservation systems the national parks uses is trash. The campsite we had last night is empty tonight, but we had to move anyways. As thru hikers to me it’s no big deal, but annoying to see an inefficiency in the process as an engineer. The rest of the crew arrives at camp and we set a plan for the next few days. When we finish with Yosemite we’re heading to Sequoia National Forest.

Yosemite has absolutely captured my heart and has blown my mind. The amazing shear cliffs of granite and huge trees are something I’m now in love with. I know I’ll be back to Yosemite as the PCT cuts through it on the JMT, so I look forward to when I’m back in a few weeks! Maybe I’ll spend another week there, maybe two.

I left Vegas with the goal of getting back to California today. I jump on the highway and it’s smooth sailing. GPS says 4.5 hours to get back to Ridgecrest.

I’m heading to Ridgecrest to grab a set of trekking poles for Pickles. She left her poles at a trail angels house. They shoot me the address and say “the house keys under the door mat.” Really nothing else.

Cool- I finish up the first leg of the drive and pull into Ridgecrest. I call Stealthy and Pickles but they don’t answer, I ring the door bell of the house and no answer. Ok I guess I’m going in. I grab the key and enter the house, there’s two barking dogs and two cats just staring at me like who the F are you?

I look around for poles and see nothing. I look a bit more and say hmm how weird is this. I’m in someone house uninvited searching through their stuff. Arguably feel like I’m doing a breaking and entering. I look for one more minute and then leave empty handed after saying good by to the pups. Sorry Patches I let you down on this mission.

From Ridgecrest it was another hour and a half up the Kern River where I am meeting up with everyone at Dome Rock. I expect there to be no food so I stop at McNallys and grab 2 burgers and 2 fries for tonight.

I text my buddy Geoff McNally from an old work place and shoot him the photo I’m at his restaurant. Geoff’s from NY and a good shit, I doubt he’s been to Kernville population 1800 though.

After grabbing my burgers it’s back on the road. I eat them while I’m driving. We are camping at Dome Rock tonight as a jump off point to go to Yosemite tomorrow. I’m going with Stealthy, Pickles, Scrathes and Short Cut to meet up with Greenhorn who’s coming south from Reno. Greenhorn went and saw his uncles, learned to fly fish with them.

I arrive at Dome Rock and see everyone hanging out. It’s an awesome spot, Stealthys got the hibachi running and he’s cooking up burgers and short ribs. This guy, what a guy this guy. Shortcut has a nice fire going for everyone to sit around. It’s the perfect temperature out.

I climb to the top of Dome rock to get cell service. The only place you get cell service around here. Figure I should text my parents I’m alive after the Grand Canyon trip and before going 5-7 days MIA again… This time in Yosemite.

After I text the fam and enjoy a gorgeous sunset, I head back down to the Jeep rental car where I decide to just car camp. No pitching my tent tonight, just too lazy after driving like 6 hours. Just blow up my airpad, full down the seats and I’m just short enough to fit. Nice. Nite

I get woken up at 3:45AM by Seven shaking my hand as it over hangs my bed. “Hey Mouse, what time are we leaving?”

“What time is it now?” Me

“3:45AM.” Seven says

“Okay, we’ll leave after I shower and stuff at 4. It’s an hour drive to trailhead and sunrises is at 5:18AM today.”

Seven goes into the bathroom to get ready and I fumble for my phone. I wake up nervous today. Why? I don’t know I’m hiking again after a few days off probably. First day of school jitters.

We leave the Hualapai Lodge and start the hour drive to the trail head. It’s pitch black out. The drive is easy, drive like 10 miles and take a left into IR18. Follow that road until you can’t go anymore. 60 ish miles and find a parking spot. I tell Seven last time I was here we saw someone hit a cow. Keep your eyes open.

A half hour goes by and nothing, easy drive at 65 MPH. Another 15 minutes go by and we start seeing everything, Wild hogs, coyotes, huge deer and cows. A ton of baby cows with their parents. As we turn a corner we see 4 of them in the street. Slow down, I beep and they move.

We arrive at the trailhead and take zero time to get ready. We get walking after the obligatory photo from the top. Seven asks if I want a photo of me, “nah dude I haven’t even posted last year’s photos yet haha true story.”

The trails easy after what we’ve done in SoCal. If I remember correctly, it’s 10 miles of downhill leisure walk to the Supai village and another 2.5 into camp from there. I brought 1 liter of water and probably won’t drink it. It’s currently 5:45AM and we see our first hikers leaving for the day hitting the parking lot.

What time did you start I ask the guy.

“Midnight” he says. Sheeeesh, that’s rough bud, took ya 5 hours to hike out?

After a half mile we see a horse in the middle of the switchbacks. What’s the move here? Walk by the front and get bit or the back and get kicked? We scurried around him and then kept moving.

The rest of the walk down to the village was easy. We chat and I ask Seven his plans for when he goes home. I’m kindve jealous of the people going home to burn time, but I can’t justify flying back to Boston for a week. Any suggestions for time wasters I’ll take them.

We see the Supai village sign and I tell him he’s almost there. Congrats buddy you’ve almost hiked into one of the last most remote villages in the continental United States.

From here we start seeing villagers walking out as well. We great them and say hello and they tell us we’re almost there. The mules start to pass us bringing people’s bags to the trailhead. I tell Seven how that process works. People drop off their bags by 10Am and the mules will pick them up and drop them off at the campground around 2PM. They get picked up 7AM and get to the trailhead at 11 when they leave. We laugh that we ourselves are our pack mules. This trip is the lightest my bags been in a while, I brought absolutely nothing. Not even pants.

As I walk in, I notice how much different everything is from last year. The flash flood really did a number on the terrain. We get to the bridge to the village and read the sign that says “No photos of the village.” Roger that.

Some of the houses look decent and some look run down. Most of them have satellite dishes on top, one has Starlink. Pretty cool we saw it fly over head again on the drive in. Most of the houses have air conditioners in the windows. Some dogs follow us and we have a new hiking partner.

We get through the village and to the first few waterfalls. Underwhelming for us coming from the wilderness, we turn the corner to Havasu falls and Seven smiles. I film his reaction and then take my own look. The 4th time I’ve seen this view after the hike. Still amazing to me.

We snag some photos and head down to find a camp site to start exploring more. I tell Seven we’re not camping early, too much foot traffic and people with white lamps on all night will bother us. Need something secluded.

We cross 2 bridges and pick a spot. The trees I used last year to cross were completely gone. I’m guessing washed away. Seven points and says “Mouse we’re getting water front tonight!” Roger that bud.

After setting up we head down to Mooney Falls, and then all the way Beaver Falls. Our trail legs are fierce, to go to Beaver Falls before noon on day one? It’s 15 miles from the trail head. Easy peasy. Am I finally in shape?

On the way back from beaver falls we soaked it in, climbed Mooney with absolutely no one on it. Then walked back to the top of Havasu Falls again and grabbed some fry bread and a nice cold Sprite for 3$. Perfect first day in Havasupai.

Days 2 and 3 we went and saw the confluence and hung around the first three falls just relaxing. Working on our tans. Swimming and enjoying the warm sun.

These days were perfect, even though the confluence is 20 miles round trip that’s actually a short day for us at this point in our year. Heck my last day on actual PCT trail was a 31 mile day. It was nice to soak our feet and just chill with no agenda. No rush and no plans on what to do.

Mooney falls is an absolute trip, how older people or kids gets down it baffle me. It’s a shear 150’ drop with rock holes and chains. People call it a ladder, I arguably wouldn’t even call it a ladder. Yes the last 20 feet is a ligit ladder but nothing else. You get rained on by the mist as you climb down and there usually a line of people shaking the chains as you climb.

It’s a moment of fear and three points of contact but man it will let you know you’re alive. Each time I do it I say how do I get my self into these situations. And then I love every minute of it.

For our last day we leave early. Awake at 4AM camp packed up by 4:30 and we’re on trail by 5AM. Seven has a plane to catch from Vegas tomorrow and we’re shooting for a nice lunch somewhere in Vegas. Maybe in N Out on the way there.

It’s sad to say goodbye to my buddy for real this time but I know I’ll see him again further up the trail. I plan on taking a week off in Lake Stevens WA when I get there.

But with me going into the Sierras next week worst case I get snowed in and take some more time off and wait for him somewhere a few stops in. Best case I’m 2 weeks ahead of him and I get to give him the insider info for his entry into the mountains. Either way it’s a win all around. I’m glad I could show my buddy a good time in the Grand Canyon. He almost didn’t even come with me, what a stiff.

We leave Bishop around 10 AM it’s a 4 1/2 hour drive to Las Vegas. Seven and I start out with a half a tank of gas and question if that’s enough.

We get through the first windy highway of our journey and realize we have 15 miles left. We take a detour towards Dyer to fill up the small at the smallest gas station I’ve ever seen and pay $5$/gallon for 87 unleaded. The small Jeep I rented takes 12 gallons and we get moving again.

Another hour goes by and we’re cruising, it’s a one lane highway. The speed limit is 70 and cars are passing us and we’re passing cars. We get towards the famous Area 51 section and a cop flips on the lights and pulls me over.

“Good afternoon, do you know how fast you’re going sir.” Police Officer

“Good afternoon sir. Just under 70, sir.” Me

“ Speed limit here is 55, I had you coming in at 70.” he says

I hand him my license and tell him I don’t have a registration because it’s a rental car. He says not a problem and tells me he’ll be right back. He comes back and tells me that he’s currently working overtime and the reason why is because people have been speeding on this road. There is a literal 1 mile stretch of this particular area to where the speed limit drops from 70 mph to 55 mph and I entered it going too fast. It’s Area 51. Yeah, famous Area 51

He tells me that this could be a very expensive ticket because it’s supposed to be $10 for every mile per hour over but instead he is going to cut me a break because he now knows we are visiting from California and that we were slowing down before we saw him.  The officer hands me a ticket for $75 and tells me that it will not be a surcharge as long as I pay it. I read the ticket and it says that I was being fined for “speeding in a rural area.” Spider-Man meme everyone gets one. I’ll take it.

We drive the rest of the way slowly and stop at a Walmart and then an REI. It’s about time to be replacing shoes again for both of us and REI is the place to get shoes for us. I try the Olympus on instead of another pair of Lone Peaks and don’t like them. The heel padding eeh not for me. I guess I’ll go one more pair of lone peaks .

We get into Vegas and grab a hotel room at the Excalibur. It was 58$ for the night probably the cheapest place we’ve stayed so far on trail.

We grabbed food and then walked the strip at sunset. Sevens never been to Vegas before so I show him the sites. Nothing too exciting for us and as they stay what happens here stays here. Plus we are only stopping by because tomorrow we head down famous Route 66 for our next week of hiking

I burnt a few days in Bishop waiting out the snow. We started it off with some amazing Bbq. I got the pulled pork sandwhich and Seven went with the burnt ends. Overall this place was fire.

Seven and I then hit the dispensary and some grocery stores. We drove a few more miles and stopped at the hot springs with Stealthy, Trash Panda, Doc Habanero and Coffee Break for a soak. It was raining out and the water temps were the perfect remedy after a week of hard hiking.

As it got dark Seven and I looked for a hotel, pouring out we didn’t want to pitch tents and deal with that hassle. Instead we wanted to shower and do laundry before going to bed. We grabbed a room at the Travel Lodge, now with laundry done and us now clean it was time for some tv and bed.

The next morning we wake up, eat breakfast and drive to Vons to met the others to find out they want to go bouldering at Buttermilk Boulders.

Vons Apple index was fairly excessive for organic but regular apples were reasonable.

After meeting the guys, and getting the game plan we headed over to the 1903 pub to grab brunch before heading to Buttermilk Boulders to do some climbing. I grabbed a bacon grilled cheese and Mac and cheese. Trash Panda is fairly experienced in climbing so he’s going to set us up with everything for the day.

We drive the rough dirt road to Buttermilk Boulders and it’s absolutely pristine. The boulders look amazing and there’s some awesome trails in the area. We spend the day bouldering, drinking beers, burning a few Js and doing something totally different than we are use to.

After we leave Buttermilk we head back to the Keough hot springs and soak our muscles. As we’re doing that Wind, Uglystick and Dallas text us. They want to go get Thai food at Thai Thai. I tell them we will pick them up at 6:30 and head over.

Thai Thai was at the Bishop airport, the lot of us grabs a big booth and enjoys a nice dinner together. We talk about Uglystick and Winds plans to keep going into the sierras. They are the first two hikers to start getting through in the snow. I met Uglystick at McDonald’s in El Cajon pass, he hooked me up with the house in Wrightwood. I met and had dinner with Wind in Wrightwood for 2$ taco Tuesday. On trail I haven’t seen them since then, they’ve been doing 35 mile days. That’s too much for me to keep up with.

After Thai food we head back to the hotel and chill for the night. Tomorrow Seven and I leave California for a side quest. I’ll be dropping him off at the airport after to go home, but I’ll be back at Kennedy Meadows in a week to smash my own journey through the sierras.

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.