Tues. August 16        Miles today: 5.5       Total so far: 1,615.9        Sierras Section G

Bill and I slept like logs last night, and boy, did we need the sleep!  The alarm went off in the predawn dark at 5:00 am, but we just couldn’t drag ourselves up till 5:30.  Yawn!  Then off we went into a very pretty morning with “popcorn clouds” in the sky above Kennedy Meadows, happily anticipating the food, showers, etc. that were ahead of us at The Store.

But soon we were in difficulty.  The big gullywasher, violent storm we went through on Sunday night had made for BIG runoff everywhere in the valley.  Since the soil is basically gritty/sandy stuff, there was no way for us to tell which “washout path” was just that, and which was PCT.  There were no posts or markers to indicate the way.  We lost the trail completely once, and had to spend quite a while beating around and backtracking before we could find it again.  “There oughta be more PCT posts around here!” we grumbled.  We were amazed, though, at how many people LIVED around the area.  There were little houses, trailers and barns everywhere we looked. 

Then I really messed up.  I knew that we would come to a road on which we should turn right to get to the Kennedy Meadows store.  But when we reached the road, for some dumb reason, I thought it was a different road, and that the NEXT one would lead to the store.  So instead of turning off the trail as we should have, we kept going…and going…and going, without crossing any other road.  Finally I realized something was wrong, we stopped and studied the map, and we figured out our mistake.  It looked like the shortest way back would NOT be to take the PCT, but to walk on another road that paralleled it.  So back we went, and hooray, we hadn’t even walked far on the other dirt road, when along came a pickup truck, the driver offered us a ride, and finally, there it was–the PCT-famous Kennedy Meadows Store!

Somewhat holding our breaths when we asked for our resupply box, we breathed a great sigh of relief when there it was!  Wheeeew!  And it was FULL of food–enough for 8 days of hiking through the High Sierras.  Opening it was like Christmas Day, with lots of goodies!  After a “second breakfast” of pastries and coffee, I headed for the rustic outdoor showers.  For $2, the Store supplies soap, shampoo, and a towel.  Man did it feel good to be CLEAN!  I felt energized again!  Now it was laundry time, and since there’s only a generator for electricity, it was once again a “solar dryer” just like at Stehekin!  While the laundry dried, Bill and I ate and ate from the great hamburger stand on the deck by the store.  They let you “run a tab”, which is awesome, and saves so much bother with lots of individual transactions.   The food was great–freshly barbequed burgers and chicken, iced tea, rootbeer floats, chili with cheese….you get the idea!   I also did a lot of journal-writing, sorted food, and we looked very carefully through all our gear to see if there were any things we could send home to save on packweight.  One item Bill decided to send home was our water filter; I was rather worried about doing that, but it does weigh 14 oz, and that would help.

I must say that Kennedy Meadows is a great place.  Some hikers call it “the vortex” because it’s hard to leave.  The Store pretty much has everything you could need (except bear cans–more on that later!), and for me, the gardenerperson, I got my “flower fix” looking at the pretty flowers out front.  The store has a large porch with plenty of chairs and tables, plus a railing to air sleeping bags. We’ve heard that at times there could be 20 or more thruhikers hanging out here on the porch.  There’s also an outdoor movie theater, where they show a movie every Saturday night, alternating old black and white films (like Tom Mix cowboy movies) with “modern” ones–next Saturday they were going to feature “Shanghai Knights”.  On the fun & furry side of the store were Wilhelm the dog, who is an ARTIST at begging for tidbits from hamburger stand customers, and Katz, the gray tabbycat who wants lots of petting, and kept lying down on top of my papers where I was trying to write.  But the “dark” furry critters are there, too, apparently.  Last Saturday night, after everyone had gone home to bed after the movie, a BEAR broke into the theater popcorn stand and ate all the popcorn, then it went and ripped apart the back door of the store, and ate a package of hot dog buns, some cookies, and a large amount of bird seed!  The solution?   By the back door of the store, stood a large bear TRAP, baited with hot dog buns and tuna.  So far no luck catching the bear, but there has apparently been a lot of joking about coming out some morning to find a trapped, hungry PCT thruhiker!  The teasing comes from the colorful group of “locals” who hang out on the front porch.  Bill had fun sitting with them for awhile, and he fit right into the group, with his bushy beard and well-worn clothes!

Overall, we had a GREAT time during our day at the store.  It’s very well organized for hiker needs, everybody is cheerful, friendly and helpful–BUT…..to our huge dismay, they had no bear cans for sale, or for rent.  We had assumed that since this is such a “jumping off place” for Sierra travel, that there’d be a whole stack of bear cans available.  No such luck.  Apparently thruhikers are expected to MAIL their own bear can to the store, not buy one there.  We were not one bit worried about bears, and would normally just sleep with our food if we had any real “bear concerns”, but what worried us was the thought of rangers on the trail dishing out a $270 fine to each of us for not having a bear can.  We went and talked to the bushy-bearded locals on the front porch to get some advice on what to do, and they said, “Why there’s a horsepacker outfit at Horseshoe Meadows; y’all just talk to them and I’ll bet they’d sell you a couplea bear cans.  They’ve gotta carry those darn things, too, y’know.”  Somewhat reassured, we went off to get a final round of ice cream, then hoisted packs (Oh MAN!  The packs were ghastly heavy!!!) and walked back to the PCT, then north to the campground, where we carefully hung our food bags WAY high and out of bear reach.  The 8 days of food were so heavy, that we could barely manage to haul the bags up.    It was a beautiful, warm, clear evening, so we just “crashed” and didn’t bother to put up the tarp.  I was very excited at the thought , “Tomorrow, the real thing begins–into the High Sierras!”

Mon. August 15     Miles today: 23.8     Total so far: 1,634.2        Sierras Section G

It was one cold, sodden morning that greeted the early dawn light!  Bill and I waited till the rain stopped at 5:30 am before getting up and dressed in cold, wet clothes and shoes.  Not fun!  The sky was still dark gray and threatening, so all we could do was pack up and head out, hoping to dry things later.  The ground was muddy and sloppy from all the rain, and we had to hike more than two miles before we could find a wide, flat, reasonably dry rock where we could sit down and eat some breakfast.  All the trees were dripping, and all the plants looked “mushed” by the heavy rain. 

A couple more miles brought us to Chimney Creek Campground, where we’d planned to get water.  But a sign at the entrance warned that the water had “higher than acceptable levels of uranium”.  We didn’t care–we only needed a few liters.  But oh no–all the campground faucets wee turned off!  We were discussing this in dismay, not liking the prospect of having to filter a lot of creek water, when a man camped nearby called out a friendly greeting.  He offered us bottled water, AND oh-by-the-way, he’d just made coffee–would we like some?  And “how ’bout that light show last night!!??”  So thanks to real trail angel Joe from Fremont, CA, we enjoyed fresh hot coffee and got water enough for many more miles.  Not only our stomachs were warmed, but our hearts also!

Now it ws a long, long uphill in front of us, beginning with the climb to Fox Mill Spring, where we got the rest of the water we needed.  Then it was several more hours of climbing as the PCT regained the crest.  But damage from last night’s violent storm was everywhere along the way.  The more of it we saw, the more grateful we were to the Lord for watching over us, even though we did get wet!  Overhead, we got lots of “audio entertainment’ from fighter jets above the clouds.  We couldn’t see them, but we sure could hear them!  (I think they were out of China Lake Naval Air base). 

We began to get some awesomer and awesomer mountain views, and at lunch, instead of a 45-60 minute break, we took two whole hours to spread our wet gear out to dry along the trail.  It wasn’t very sunny, so our sleeping bags were still very damp even after two hours.  But we didn’t want to wait any longer, so we just draped them over ourselves and wore them like shawls for several more hours of hiking, till they were nice and dry again.  Finally we were able to go DOWNhill toward the Domelands Wilderness, but many miles (12.8, to be exact) of PCT now went through a bad fire area from July of 2000.  The weedy plants that have regrown since the fire overhang the trail and sometimes made it hard to get through. 

Looking north, we were excited to see what really looked like Sierras in the distance, but looking around us, we were saddened by the now-barren, burned, rocky hillsides, which were once home to thriving pinyon pines.  The pines will probably never regrow, and the hillsides will probably stay barren forever, like the once-forested mountains in Nevada, where the pines were cut down for Comstock mines, and have never regrown.  Finally we reached the valley where the Kern River flows, and hiked till 7:30 pm before stopping to make a VERY firmly secured campsite in case we got a repeat of last night.  Lightning and thunder off in the distance gave us all the encouragement we needed as we TIED rather than staked down the tarp!

Then, as I was writing some notes by the light of my headlamp, a scorpion came strolling on to our groundcloth only a foot from my hand!  He was a cute little guy, and it was the first time I’d ever seen a scorpion “in the wild”, so I had a good look at him (Bill did, too) before shooing him away.  Once I turned out the headlamp and lay down, I was relieved to notice that the thunder and lightning were moving AWAY.  Bill and I were both totally tired out, and slept well!