No clouds this morning! We hoisted our horribly heavy packs and headed for Diaz Creek— we needed water. But we were so distracted with admiring the scenery and spotting “old friend” landmarks from our day hikes in the Cottonwood Pass area, that we missed the unmarked trail to the creek. Oh well— we decided to ration water and go for Chicken Spring Lake. Snow on the trail was never a problem, but we noticed plenty on the mountains around, and also a lot of snow cornices.

After lunch and a rest at Chicken Spring, we did get to climb over a snow cornice on the trail, but it wasn’t bad. We were pretty excited to think that now we really were entering the High Sierras. We marched happily along the miles of downhill toward Rock Creek, and just before we reached it, there was a note tacked to a post, inviting the hikers over to the summer rangers house for food. We went for it, and though we were disappointed to find the “food” was an almost empty “hiker box”, we did get to see inside the cute ranger cabin.

Back ontrail, a discouraging development— a young couple heading south after turning back at Forester Pass. That really worried me. We made a nice camp near Rock Creek, though, and the mosquitoes weren’t bad.

Walk to Lórien: Redhorn pass of Caradhras blocked by snow

A lot of clouds came in last night and started dripping, but nothing serious. A bit after we started hiking, it even hailed. Didn’t stop us— we were headed for “breakfast at the swallow bridge”! Sure enough, we could eat and watch the swallows feeding their babies who were tucked in nests right over the river. Lots of hikers were camped there, and just getting up.

We could see the Sierras, white peaks on the horizon, across the vast green meadow. Next came a very long climb up to 10,500 feet, then way down again, past cliffs that looked sort of like a mini-Yosemite. We stopped to eat Snickers and take on water at Death Canyon Creek— gorgeous place! There’s even a “swimming hole” (well, bathtub size, actually), but it was too cold a day to take a dip.

Then began another killer climb to 10,700 feet. Views at the top are unbelievable— thousands of feet down to the Owens Valley. We had to hike “overtime”— past 7:00pm— along the steep mountainsides before we could reach a saddle with flat places. The mosquitoes were waiting for us, and the clouds looked a bit threatening, so we rigged both tarp and net tent. It felt great to be inside away from the mosquitoes, but I thought about the snow patches we’d started seeing and wondered what it would be like in lots of snow. bill and I are both totally tired out.

Walk to Lórien: Climbing up base of Redhorn

Well, I guess we’ve switched from being “hiker trash” to being “trailer trash” because we really enjoyed our one night in the cute tiny trailer at Tom’s place. Breakfast time saw more hikers coming in and lots of hikers leaving to tackle the Sierras (once they finished their pancakes and coffee!) I took awhile loading our food bags and bear cans. We hefted our packs… heeeavy! Then we went to the store to hang out for awhile, and I ended up helping a couple who were just come in. (They recognized us from reading our blog.)

I learned the hard way yesterday to sign up ASAP to do laundry, for example, so urged them to do that right away. After lunch, we hit the trail. I felt very excited and very scared at the same time. All the hikers were talking about “big snow”, “river crossings”, etc, and I was wondering “Can I do this?”. Bill and I prayed as we began for safety and wisdom all along the trail, and up we went, following the Kern River as it wound its way up through edges of willows and roses and wildflowers.

We met fishermen heading home. Finally around 6:30pm we were at the edge of Beck meadow and decided to stop where there were lots of trees, flat ground, and a little creek to rinse dirty socks in. Perfect!

Walk to Lórien: Winding up into hills near Redhorn