5.3.2018 Day 40 Thursday

566-580

Town days always go by so fast. Sleeping in felt amazing as always and the continental breakfast helped out hiker hunger this morning. Greg has left me some smoked salmon so that made my breakfast even better.

After breakfast, I repacked my foodbag one more time. My 12×20 LokSak was full to the brim, my “day snack” bag had waaaay too much into for one day and I still had Reese’s peanut butter cups and Triskits that needed a home. I mailed a few food items to my friend Matt who is meeting me in Kennedy Meadows with a few gear items next week. I figured mailing them to him and him bringing them back was better than having to make an extra stop at the post office next week.

We left he hotel by 11 but I wasn’t back on the trail until 1pm. As the 5 of us walked towards Wits End (a hiker resource place) Justin and I spotted a food truck. I wasn’t quite ready for lunch so I didn’t place an order but while Justin and I were standing there, a nice lady parked her car and literally shoved money into Justin’s backpack as we wanted to buy us lunch. The kindness of strangers never quits out here. Or as some will say: the trail provides. It all happened so fast and she wouldn’t take the money back, all she said was that her son couldn’t hike the trail anymore but she still wanted to give to those who could. It was $25 she had given us. We tipped the food truck people with the $5 and donated the $20 to Wits End for all that they do. Laura and Fireman were able to get their boxes shipped from wits end as well as arrange a ride for all of us back to the highway. What goes around, comes around.

Melissa was our trail angel who picked us up from Wits End. Since she couldn’t fit all 5 of us, she took Seeker, Fireman and Laura. Justin and I stayed back — and this is how I’m now separated from them all — but Melissa came back 30 minutes later to give us a ride too. In those 30 minutes tho, Justin went back to the food truck and grabbed a burger for me. Little did I know I was going to be scarfing it down at the trailhead and packing out a 16oz can of Diet Coke. Yup. That happened.

So back on the trail by 1. It was hot, but not too bad. What was bad was climbing the first 7 miles up to 6,100ft. During the climb Justin smoked me per usual. I knew he was planning on 17 miles to the water source–which I knew I’d run out of daylight for and most likely space for my tent by the time I got there. So I planned for my own day of 15ish miles and I’ll make it to eater early in the morning. I’ll just have to make bigger miles tomorrow overall. Water is at miles 583 and then not again until 602. So tomorrow could be a doozy!

I did end up hiking with a guy named Fossil. He’s 72. He’s from Bend, Oregon. He’s retired from a company named General Atomics (If I remember correctly) where he was employee for 43 years. This is his 3rd year section hiking the trail. What a neat guy. We both had a 15 mile plan for the day so we figured we’d end up looking for a spot together for the day. We made it to mile 580 just before 8pm. I’m not sure what I should be more proud of: setting pace for him or him keeping up with me. We had a steady pace all the way up the climb together. We took break together and I downed my Diet Coke–water conservation at its finest. I was surprised how well I had climbed today considering I had 4 liters of liquid (that’s water and Diet Coke) and all that food for the next 8 days.

So it’s almost 10pm now. I wasn’t super hungry so I made a cold tuna wrap and ate some chocolate. Pictures for these blogs will have to wait for another day as the service is once again spotty here. Hope you are all doing well. Keep your fingers crossed, maybe I’ll hit mile 600 tomorrow.