Author: memoriesaheadmilesbehind

Current Status: My uncle Walter was nice enough to meet Justin and me at Hwy 108 today. We stopped for burgers in Strawberry and are now on our way to Modesto. Justin will take a zero and I may go see a doctor. (My sinus stuff hasn’t cleared yet). Blog updates to follow when I get on reliable WiFi. It’s been a tough week. I’m not sure what will follow. For now, just wanted to let you all know I’m okay.

5/25-5/26

This was yesterday (Friday’s) afternoon photo of the clouds lingering. This morning (Saturday) things have looked so much better. Justin just ran into Seeker, Heidi, Nutz, Grover and Pacecar at the gear store. Hooray! So happy to hear they are safe and all together. We may be having dinner with them to hear their stories.

I’m pretty much packed and ready to go for a departure tomorrow. I think yesterday I was getting a bit stir crazy as there wasn’t much to do. I did get some reading done and some good downtime by the fireplace this morning. I’m getting that notorious little tickle in my throat from being inside too much. I went to sleep as early as possible last night with the help of a few allergy meds in hopes to kick this thing in the butt and not let it get worse. It’s still hanging on tho. I’m thinking positive and hoping it’s just all the stale air that I’ve been ingesting indoors.

We are all hesitant in one or another for the next round of weather that comes behind us. From Mammoth we will be rejoin the PCT at mile 906 or 914. I don’t think that’s been decided yet. Tuolumne Meadows is at mile 942 in just a few days. From there we could be in Kennedy Meadows North (mile 1016) by this time next Saturday or Sunday–which is my hope. I mailed a resupply box there which contains another 6 days of food that would take us into South Lake Tahoe for our next resupply. Don’t bother looking at those dates on my planner for now, clearly I’m in limbo with this past weather that came through so the days and timing will be wacky for now. If you are able to meetup somewhere, contacting me on the Garmin is best so I’ll have a heads up.

As far as my spirits as a few of you have asked, the fact that I have missed the high Sierra section for now is a bummer. I always knew it could happen and depending on how the rest of the time goes from here, there’s always a chance that I can come back to Kearsarge and tackle those 180 miles that I had to bypass. And if not this year, there’s always next. For now, I will hope that pushing northbound from here will be less dangerous and back to the rewarding adventure it first started out as. I have had time to reflect on ideas for the further (after the trail) and I’ll leave those ideas out of here for now, but let’s just say I’ve already been inspired to conquer some new challenges in life. For now, I feel good. Today was the first day my knees haven’t felt completely sore going up and down the stairs of the hotel. My feet are antsy to get back in those Altras and my back is starting to wonder where all that weight has gone. I miss my backpack 🙂

So for now, it’s Saturday afternoon and as I rest up before we have dinner in a few hours, I wish you all well. I’ve chatted with a few friends today and caught up on life happenings outside of this trail. So much I have missed. I love you all, have a great holiday weekend!

5.25.2018

I haven’t taken a lot of photos in town. All this downtime is great but there’s a lack of energy of wanting to do much more than shower, have breakfast, go to the store, have coffee, stare at maps and resupply stuff, have dinner and go to sleep. For 2 days we’ve tried to play mini golf here at the resort but we’ve missed our window of sunshine each day. We aren’t stuck in a vortex we are just kinda stuck. Again, there are moment when I feel like I’m on vacation. Laura and I did splurge for a massage here today. I miss my days of yoga at home and being able to keep some shoulder/neck pain at bag. I haven’t mentioned it as it’s something I have learned to handle and work on at home. Out on the trail, it’s just there and it’s there because of my pack and the whacky posture we all have our hear. BUT the massage felt amazing. Well worth it.

I found out yesterday that Luc went to mile 1500 with 6 other hikers from Bishop. Tyler went in Tuesday. Joey I believe is home on days off. Seeker and Heidi, well, I’m hoping to hear from them today. And last I talked with Shrink he’s thinking about going in tomorrow. But guess who emerged from the snowy PCT today?!?! This guy! There was a phone call this morning from him, saying he was at Reds Meadow. Well, the road into Reds wasn’t open. So he had a long road walk from there and ended up literally walking through the ski resort with his pack on while being surround by skiers and snowboarding enjoying their own kind of day. When Justin showed up at the hotel here I’m not sure who had the bigger smiles. We were soooooo happy to see him and hear his story, seriously I am so proud of him. He, on the other hand, was so happy to see us and hear that we didn’t go in. He showed us pictures — which were stunning of course — but the days of snow, route finding, running out of food, being out for almost 14 days, and not seeing many other people all made for an experience that only he can explain. He didn’t get frost bite, but he’s got some definite foot sores from his feet being wet for long durations of time.

We were happy to welcome into our room for a shower and some leftover pizza–which he ate WITH olives. Then we went for some real dinner at the Mammoth Tavern.

We decided today that we will wait until Sunday to leave. The hotel was nice enough to give us the same rate through the holiday weekend. We are really wanting to get back on the trail from mile 903. I’d like to hike into Yosemite, that’s been very high on my list. The concern is Donahue Pass which is just over 11,000ft and of course we are still super early as most people have skipped towards the Tahoe area to get away from the snow. The hope as of now is that this weather will settle over the weekend and we can get back out there, take it slow. It would be nice to hike around Yosemite before the summer crowds show up so if we spend a few days there, I’m okay with that. The next issue becomes resupply. The Tuolumne Meadows Post Office doesn’t open until the 8th of June, so that’s not going to work for us. Our next resupply (for boxes) will not be until Sonora Pass/Kennedy Meadows North which is mile 1016 on the trail. The good thing is that the elevation of the trail is much lower (northbound) in comparison to the high Sierras we had to bypass.

Town days can get expensive. We aren’t eating a lot of our pack food–I don’t want a ramen when I can have a burger. It’s been nice to share the room with others as that really helps to keep the bill down. I can’t imagine staying at the hostel in Bishop for a week like this. Guess I’m too old for that kind of scene.

I did get a quick drop in visit from Matt & Ryder again. Matt was headed up to Loyalton to see his parents and was nice enough to drop off my rain jacket. He also brought some tools to help in fixing the tips on my trekking poles. One more town chore accomplished. Thanks Matt!

As I now write to finish this post up–it’s Friday morning. When we arrived in Mammoth (on Tuesday) this was supposed to be our departure day. I’m sitting in front of the lobby fireplace drinking coffee while the “kids” all sleep. It looks like it’ll be another beautiful day here but the clouds still linger over the mountains. Everyone I have talked to says the current weather patterns are unusual for town. Today I may actually get some reading done. Funny how that’s all I really want to do and I never get to it. First world problems, right?

Hope you all have a great day! Happy Friday. I will say this: I really want to get back to hiking–let’s not forget that but we still have to think about what direction it’s best to go from here. There also becomes an issue of how much of the trail we can cover once we’ve sat this long. I wanted to be “done” by September. So that’s always weighing heavy on the decisions to skip, flip or quit. A week off is a long time…. and the herd is behind us. Should be interesting to see how the bubble happens up here. It’s pretty easy to spot the hikers here and every day we see a few more.