Category: PCT 2018

5.23.2018

With the clouds still hanging around the mountains near and far, the zero in Mammoth was full of fun and laughs. This is when I feel slightly guilty for being in town and not hiking. I feel like I’m on vacation. It’s a day like today that makes you wonder what all the other people around me do for a living. Are they on vacation as well? Are they playing hooky from school or work? Or have they figured out the simpler life already? Whatever the reason, the town days to be with the locals of small towns like this are just plain fun.

We had breakfast at Mamas Kitchen Table. It was a cute little bistro with delicious pastries and breakfast items. The overindulging in town seems to be a common thread. I try to eat responsibly, but it never fails that some sort of pastry or muffin makes it into my hands. I can’t help it, I’m hungry all the time!

After breakfast we went into the Mammoth Mountaineering Supply store. I’m not sure how long we were there but there was a sale in progress. I’ll just leave it at that.

We took the free trolley over to The Village for a 2pm beer at Mammoth Brewery. We had hoped for a late lunch there but the kitchen didn’t open until 3. So we played bean bag toss while the weather was warm outside and then we went over to Gomez’s for tacos. For my tequila loving friends, they advertise over 500 different bottles. Good luck with that.

Shrink had told me he was on his way to Mammoth, so I told him where we were at so he could join in the fun with us. We ended up kidnapping him and taking him back to the lodge with us.

From there we tried out the other brewery where we played games–LCR and Farkle, two of my favorites. Dinner was pizza and pasta as we tried to put weight back on for our next days on the trail.

We stayed up a little too late talking and playing another game. We were all tucked in around 1130. The only plan for the next few days is to wait out the weather. We did have a slight celebratory cheer when we saw a few blog posts about hikers who exited the trail. It reaffirmed our decision to get out when we did. The conditions are still not great for anyone to really be in there. Hopefully we will hear some good news tomorrow.

5.22.2018

Those clouds!!!!! Those are the clouds that hovered over us all day yesterday while in the mountains. Mostly sunny in Independence for the time that we had spent here. It’s 9:13 as I write this on the bus to Bishop. We are going to have breakfast there and catch the 1pm bus to Mammoth. I just got a message from Tyler who is currently headed back to the trail. I wish him the best and look forward to his updates via FB and Instagram. It doesn’t look pretty up there and as much of a bummer it is to not be on the trail right now, the uncertainty of the conditions of those mountain passes is what’s keeping us down here. We will figure out where to start back up again soon.

(8:57PM) We made it to Bishop around 930. We grabbed a bite to eat at the Great Basin Bakery. We had heard it was more of a local eatery than a hiker one, so when we showed up with our packs we had plenty of people ask us questions: where were we going, how was the trail, how long we’d been out, where were we from. One guy even sounded like he would have been happy to give us a ride to wherever we needed. Super nice.

We made a quick stop at Eastside Sports. Can’t keep the gear junkies out of the gear store! I bought some new snow baskets for my poles and some new chonies–since I’ve lost that much weight. After that we walked down to the KMart where the next bus to Mammoth departed from. I should mention bus fare from Independence was $6.50…. from Bishop to Mammoth it was another $7. Man, I know I fly free but the bus is cheap in these small towns. I just might be on to more adventures at that price!!!! 🙂

We made it into Mammoth just before 2pm. The mountains were encompassed in clouds for the entire drive up. We decided to grab a room at the Sierra Nevada Resort & Spa. Sounds terribly fancy but don’t you worry, it has everything we need including a central location in town, laundry, a Mammoth town shuttle stop directly across the street and not to mention Roberto’s Mexican Cantina within walking distance as well. Everything a hiker could ever need. We took the free town shuttle over to the Post Office to pick up my packages. I emptied my pack in the room knowing I had 2 boxes waiting for me. I have so much food now that I haven’t eaten anything out of my pack. I had a box sent from Vegas and the bounced box I had from Independence.

Just prior to walking over for Mexican food, the skies opened up. Torrential rain dumped for a solid 10 minutes. The clouds have yet to disperse from town and it doesn’t look like they will anytime soon. I have seen more posts about hikers waiting out the storm and/or going home and less stories about hikers going back to the trail. I know we made the right decision. I finally received a quick text from Justin who is 2 days out from Reds Meadow/Mammoth. He’s been out since the afternoon of the 11th. I can’t wait for his stories!

After dinner we were full and just outright lazy. Andrew was nice enough to get laundry started for us. So at least that was accomplished today. We had a few laughs over Dudes YouTube videos that are now online. Hikers will appreciate them. You can find them under traildude2018. His daughter posted them for him from what I understand. I knew he’d been singing along the way but this is the proof and the lyrics are comical. Again, the classic song renditions are pure humor themselves. He will post one more tomorrow he said that will include his last few days on the trail with me. I should mention he wanted my trail name to be “Buh-ta” because I stole his Country Crock Butter in Kennedy Meadows and that’s how we started talking. So when you hear the mention of “Out-of-the-Blue” that is Luc. There also a mention of Laura, Andrew and Karma. So stay tuned for that little ditty.

We’ve decided to stay here until Friday. Everything we have heard about the weather seems to be the same. More rain, more snow at higher elevations. We will keep watching forecasts, blog posts and talking with others to see what our next move will be. If you’re wondering why we wouldn’t go home for a few days instead of “hanging out” here, I have a feeling that if I went home (to Vegas) I’d fall right back into normal life and never come back to the trail. I’m not ready to quit. Neither is Laura. There’s too much of the trail ahead of us. Even if I don’t get the Sierras done this year, I’ll be happy with what I do accomplish out here. So let’s just give it a few more days and see what happens. And rest is good for the body.

5.21.2018

Well, clearly the bears didn’t touch our food. After I finished blogging last night, I went out to pee, brush my teeth and that’s about the time the lightening began. Laura was pretty much still asleep but Andrew and I watch a bit of the lightening show before we closed the doors of our tents for the night. The snow was still falling and occasionally would let up to give us just enough hope that maybe that was all we were going to get. Nope, we were wrong. The snow (and lightening) continued through the night and into the morning. The loudest of the thunder was around 1:30am and I’m pretty sure we were all awake for a bit at that point.

With our alarms set for 5am for an early departure for Glens Pass by 6, we had hoped that whatever the system we were in would have moved on. To our dismay, this was not the case. The mountains all around us had disappeared in the clouds. We were completely fogged in with snow that continued to fall. We decided that heading toward the pass in those conditions wasn’t something we were prepared for.

***I should say this, when we left Independence yesterday the forecasts we’d seen were for “some snow accumulation” or “10-20% chance of precipitation” so we didn’t go in blindly. We knew there was a chance we’d get a little bit of snow. When we messaged friends (through our Garmins) we were told the storm may not let up until Wednesday.***

So, back to the tents, it’s now 5:05 and we are hitting the sidewalls of our tents to shake down the snow. Laura and Andrew (in their duplex) are well aware that it isn’t the best tent to have in these conditions and their shakedown has to be even more frequent than my own. We decide for the time being we’d remain in the tents rather than head for a steep and snowy pass–so back to sleep we went. After a few hours–and more continued snow- we discussed options of staying there for the entire day and waiting out the storm, going forward–which was obviously dangerous, or going back to Independence–which meant going back over Kearsarge one more time.

I will admit I caught up on some much needed sleep. I know slushing and sliding yesterday did some havoc on my body. So other than a random trip out to pee, I got some mean sleep in today. It was noon by the time we again discussed our options. By this time the sun had barely peeked out. We still couldn’t see the mountain around us and we knew going forward would be a lot of hard work just navigating the trail. No one had gone by our tent site since about 4 PM yesterday.

So we headed out. Back down that is, not what anyone of us really wanted to do but probably the best decision we could have made with what we had to deal with. It was shortly before 1 by the time we were back to the trail. Seeing as yesterday we came down in slush and wet toes, we had somewhat better conditions to hike in today but it still called for crampons and gaiters. We even put plastic bags over our socks to help keep the slush out. The crampons made a huge difference and the gaiters kept the snow out of my shoes. Both a wise purchase. We made it back to the top of Kearsarge by 345pm and to the bottom of the Onion Valley Trailhead by 545pm.

Andrew — has just enough cell service to call Strider around 5pm. He asked if we could stay another night at the Mt. Williamson Motel and if we could get a ride back down to town. She said she’d be there shortly. She is wonderful. She saved us from having to pitch the wet tents at the trailhead.

Once back down we went to eat at the one place in town that was open. The taco truck. It’s parked in front of an old gas station/car repair place so we sat around a table with the car hoist underneath. Darn…. you can’t see it in the photo. We ran into Green Lantern there as well. He’s been waiting out the storm too and will probably head home to Spokane. He says he’d like to return in 2 weeks once the weather passes by.

We’ve decided to take a bus to Bishop at 845 tomorrow, and from there we will grab another bus ride to Mammoth. We haven’t figured out yet where we are staying or for how long but that will come in time. I don’t like the idea of skipping ahead but from the beginning I knew it was a possibility. If any of us had more experience in these kinds of situations skipping wouldn’t be happening, but these are the wrong conditions to learn on. There’s only so many ways out of the Sierras and where we were was the best option at the time. Putting ourselves on a 8-9 day stretch from here could have been dangerous or just outright miserable. You just never know. Especially with how forceful storms hit the west side and diminish of the east side of the mountains, you just can’t tell what’s going to happen. I’m confident we made the right decision and we will figure out the rest from here. We aren’t done yet.