It’s so peaceful to sleep next to a mountain stream. It’s even peaceful if your wife is snoring louder than a chainsaw. As I lay awake contemplating felling trees into streams, I decided we were going to sleep in a bit in the morning. Even so, we still were able to hit the trail by 9:15.
It was a mere 1500’ climb, but Bunny was dragging from the get go. I shouldn’t have agreed to shorter days so easily. I was trying to be a nice husband and get bonus points by being agreeable instead of being accused of pushing too hard. If we keep the pace we are currently on, we will run out of food and not have our designated backup stores in Bear and Sassy that we all had agreed on at Donner Pass. (At least Bunny and I had agreed upon the backup meal plan—Sassy can be persuaded…the early pioneers often ate Bear.) We shade hopped all the way to the top of climb.
It was like walking on a sandy beach. There’s a noticeable change of environment. We are walking on what used to be ocean floor. How do trees even grow in sand?
Last night, the charger died before I got a full charge on the phone. We might have enough to make it until tomorrow evening. I hate the thought of walking without Guthook, but the trail is well marked. The biggest problem is not having knowledge of water sources. A lot of times, and especially from here to KMS, water is scarce and off trail. I do have a couple working copies of Guthook on our iPads, but they are not interactive with GPS.
We made it to the boundary of our 7th NP (Sequoia) in time for lunch. While we were masticating, 3 guys heading south passed us and said they were getting out today. They wanted to take a break at Chicken Lake and wanted to know how much further is was. I told them they had less than 4 miles to go. After they pushed on, I kicked myself for not even thinking to ask if they had some electrons to spare.
We caught up with them taking a break and asked for a charge. They agreed to charge our phone at Chicken Spring Lake where they were going to stop for a supper break. We thanked them and took off so we could try to get there about the same time they did. It didn’t take them long to catch and pass us, but when they did, they gave us a charger and told us they’d wait for us at the lake. We’ve been saved again!
I broke a hiking pole on the final downhill to the lake. It wasn’t under any stress, it just caught on edge of rock. This was it for me and graphite poles. They may be lighter weight, but not worth risk. Now I have 100 miles to go with only one pole. I suppose, this is when the lighter weight becomes more important with hiking poles. If you have to carry a broken pole, you want it to be as light as possible.
We caught up with Lev, Nick, Akita at Chicken Spring Lake. They had just found a shady spot and sat down to cook supper. I talked to them while they ate a late lunch and Bunny searched for a campsite. They are craving an In/Out Burger and are getting off trail a day early to satisfy that need. They’ve only been out 4 days. When I told them this was our 45th day, they were amazed (probably that we were so unprepared that we needed their battery pack).
They were all just out of high school. This was the longest trip they had done. They had also hiked the Trans-Catalina Trail and a few single nights out. They didn’t like filtering water, so I filtered them a couple liters each. They were impressed with my CNOC bag and how much faster it made filtering.
They gave us an extra emergency charger and got our phone to 85%. Lev also gave us a supper and breakfast since they were getting off trail. I used the cheese enchilada with our planned supper of mashed potatoes and Buffalo chicken (chicken lake) to surprise Bunny. We are not going to bed hungry tonight. I’ll also surprise her at breakfast with the extra meal.
Bunny found a great spot on far side of the lake under a really cool tree with six trunks. She also found a beer soaking in the lake and thought it might be magic, but left it alone because there were several other hikers in the area. A few minutes later another woman came up, found the beer, and took it. Not too much longer, a guy came up and asked us if we had grabbed his beer. Bunny pointed out who had taken it and he headed off that direction. We never heard screams or gunshots, so we assume he got his beer back.
The lake was too tempting so we went in up to mid thigh level. The sun was already dropping behind the mountains which made it too cold to go further. We cooked our supper on our private beach and watched the sunset until we got too cold. We were in the tent by 7:30.
We hit a milestone today…passed the 400 mile mark and only have 100 miles left. We’ve completely given up on the idea of heading back to Tahoe to hike north to Belden because of the Dixie Fire. Honestly, after 3 years, heavy snow, deserts, droughts, mosquitos, and forest fires, we’re kind of tired of the west coast. The section into Belden has burned 2 years in a row. It may be years before we come back out to finish that section.
EFG