Wed. August 17          Miles today: 20.4         Total so far: 1,638.5             Sierras Section G

Well, we should have put up the tarp last night, because we woke up to a clear, chilly, DEW-Y morning.  The tops of our sleeping bags were soaking wet!  Oh well, we could dry them at lunch time.  So off we went, very excited, under cloudless (hooray!) skies, and it wasn’t far to the South Sierra Wilderness boundary.  “Oh boy, this is it!” I thought to myself.  First off was a climb to the hiker bridge over the Kern River, which was roaring quite furiously.  Bill was impressed with the enormous I-beams supporting the bridge.  I was impressed with how deep and fast the water was, and started being a bit worried about the bridgeLESS river crossings that lay ahead of us.

Awhile later, as we travelled through a forested area, we found several miles of trail were just hopping with dozens of tiny frogs!  They were everywhere, and it was really hard not to step on them.  We had to slow down a bit in order to avoid squishing a frog.  Meanwhile, we were discussing our bear can situation and hoping the horsepackers would be able to help us out.  Then surprise–who should we meet but a PCT SOBO, headed for Kennedy Meadows.  He told us that from there, he would head back north to do Oregon and Washington.  And he said there were MORE “Sobos” behind him.  After we’d all headed out our separate ways, I suddenly thought, “Sobos don’t need their bear cans anymore!   Maybe….hmmm!”  Sure enough, half an hour later, along came a PCT Sobo girl.  “This may sound crazy,” I said to her, “but would you consider selling us your bear can?”  She lit up like a Christmas tree with joy and relief, and couldn’t get the can out of her pack fast enough!  For a second, we almost thought she was going to pay US to take it off her hands.  We knew the cans were worth $70-80 new, but she said $20 was plenty.  What a deal!  Then along came her girlfriend, who was equally thrilled to get rid of HER heavy can.  The cans really are a pain–heavy, bulky, awkward and annoying.  So now we were all fixed up with a bear can each–nowhere near enough to hold all our food, but enough to avoid ranger fines.  I thought our packs were horribly heavy before, but now, mine was so heavy and awkward with the bear can in it, that Bill had to help me get it on.  But despite the heavy weight, we fervently thanked God for providing us clueless, unprepared thruhikers with a bear can each, at just the right time, with no need to hike offtrail to the horsepackers.  It was AGAIN His perfect timing that we have seen over and over again on this trail!

Hiking on, we reached pretty Beck Meadow and had our first view of real High Sierra peaks.  In the meadow, there was a lot of evidence of cows, and finally we spotted them, looking very glossy, fat, and happy!  Thee was a cowboy camp on the far side of the meadow, while the PCT stayed on the opposite edge, winding around next to the forest.  Finally we reached the bridge over the South Fork of the Kern River, and found a warning sign that the river water was not safe to drink, thanks to the cows.  No problem–there were plenty of streams ahead of us.  But the river was so pretty that we stopped to rest a bit and had fun watching the swallows that were nesting under the bridge and the many trout that were hanging out in the water below. 

Then we pushed on for a late lunch at the next “good water” creek, followed by a climb up into Cow Canyon.  The guidebook warned that the many cow paths there made it difficult at times to follow the PCT.  No kidding!  Again we found ourselves “beating around” trying to locate the trail.  What made it especially hard was that our packs were so ghastly heavy, and we were basically trying to go UPhill.  Finally I told Bill that if he would guard the packs, I would go “trail-hunting”. (Usually I am good at this, and I did succeed this time, too.)  Running around with no pack was way easier, and finally I located a trail junction and a PCT emblem.  Hooray!  I ran back to Bill, and we were on our way again.  The PCT here was occasionally marked with carved and painted posts–I wish there were a LOT MORE of them!   And I was frustrated by the delay.  We had hoped to get in pretty decent miles today.

The rest of the day was up, up, up, often through areas that were green and pretty, but it did get tiresome having to push through all those plants.  We hiked as long as we could, up to a 10,540 foot elevation forested saddle, where we had to stop because the sun was almost gone.  As quickly as we could, we prepared for a COLD night, and wished we’d done better mileage.  It was a tough trail, plus we had to deal with the frogs and with being lost.  One of the PCT Sobos we met today warned us that the Sierrras were by far the toughest part of the PCT.  I figured we were beginning to get a taste of that.  But like a bright shining light of encouragement even though we were tremendously tired was the way the Lord had provided the bear cans for us.  We were VERY grateful!