Even though it’s a town day, we managed to sleep a bit later than usual. The thought of a shower should have caused Bunny to awake before 6, but yesterday must have taken its toll. She slept until 7. Even with her coffee ready and at the proper temperature, I knew I was taking a risk when I shook her awake.
I took the precaution of getting out of the tent as quickly as possible. I had my morning chores to attend to: packing, filtering water, taking down the tent, and the most important of all, my constitutional. Just as I had filtered the water and was getting ready to head out to empty my guns, another ranger (that’s the 4th in 3 days) walked by the camp. I was already approaching the waning moments of my window, so I wrote today off. We talked to the ranger for about 15 minutes before she moved on. I was done for, so I took down the tent and was ready when the rest of the crew was prepared to move on.
The trail was downhill and it was a town day, so I took the lead. It’s the one day I can hike fast enough to stay ahead. Not even a mile into our morning hike and we came to a parking lot with pit latrines. I thought I might give it another try. It turns out, my window was only mostly closed. When it’s mostly closed, that means it’s slightly open. All I had to do was find out what was so important that I had to open the window again. I yelled into my pants, “Hey, what’s so important that you need to reopen the window?” Softly came the reply “to shart.” “That hardly seems worthy of reopening the window” I replied. “LIAR!” Sassy screamed.
It was then that Bunny knocked on the door and said “stay focused!” I must have been acting the scene out loud. I did manage to get a finger or two in the crack (metaphorically, no fingers left the light of day) and heave open the window. I was afraid I might have burst a blood vessel in my eye with the effort it took, but I did manage to fulfill my mornings’ dream and relieve a bit of intestinal pressure. When I came out, Sassy asked how I managed to stay in there as long as I did when it smelled so bad. I hadn’t noticed any smell until AFTER I made my contribution to the pool.
The rest of the hike in was a blurr. Literally. I was feeling so good and moving so fast that I generated my own wind whirls. The only time I remember stopping was around Devils Postpile National Monument. All I can say is the Devil gets a lot of credit for creating interesting features around the country. Just in Southern Illinois, there’s Devils Smokestack, Devils Icebox, and Devils Food Cake.
Bunny and I have seen a similar feature to Devils Postpile when we hiked the Wonderland Trail around Mt Rainier. When a volcano erupts, sometimes, if the lava cools slowly enough, hexagonal columns of basalt are formed through a process called “jointing.” In this case, this formation is less than 100,000 years old (or roughly 15 times older than the earth if one believes the literal interpretation of the bible and refuses vaccinations as Devils Work…there he goes again, getting more credit). Glaciers came through the valley last ice age to expose and polish the formation. This formation is many times the size of the columns we saw in Mt Rainier (coincidentally, the Mt Rainier hexagons were adjacent to one of the most interesting pit latrines on the trail…it’s interesting how everything ties together through poop). I would put the formation at almost 1/4 mile long.
From here, we had less than 2 miles to make it to the turn to Red’s Meadow. It was all fine and dandy to see some of the Devil’s handiwork, but I wanted food that didn’t involve boiling water. As close as we all were in hiking formation, and the speed at which our train progressed, I was not alone in that opinion. Bear had researched the bus schedule for Red’s Meadow and knew we needed to get to stop #9 before 3p to avoid an extra 1/4 mile walk to the next bus stop. We made the stop well before 2p.
Our biggest concern was that the sky was starting to cloud up. We weren’t worried about getting caught in another storm. We were worried people out dayhiking might get worried about getting caught in a storm and they would return to the buses early causing us to be delayed getting to town food. No damn dayhiker was getting in our way without a fight (might this be considered a food fight?). Not to worry, we were first in line at the bus stop before a group of 11 other hikers showed up. They weren’t cutting in front of us. We were prepared for all out war. Fortunately, 7 of the group were under 10, so not only would we win hands down. We’d end up with a lot of extra candy if it came to a fight. They saw the fire in our eyes and backed away (or maybe it was the smell from 11 days without a shower).
A section hiker had already given us a heads up on how the bus system works. We had to catch this bus which took us to the Mammoth Ski Area. The driver would collect $15/each for this ride. Once we got to the ski area, the city ran a free bus service to carry bikers to and from town. Once in town, the city also offers a free trolley service which would take us to our hotel. We made the transition from the first bus to the free bus JIT. Going down to Mammoth, we were about the only ones riding so the driver pointed out things for us. When she dropped us off in town, we realized we were only a few blocks from our hotel, so we walked rather than wait 20 minutes for the free trolley.
Checkin time isn’t until 4. We didn’t care since food was first priority. The closest pizza place was only a block past our hotel. Since we had to pass it, we thought we might see if we could leave our packs there. The hotel was a family owned Indian hotel. We prefer Indian hotels to big chains because they tend to be more friendly and less expensive. This hotel was no exception. They let us into our rooms 2 hours early.
We dropped our packs, washed our feet, changed our shirts, and put on camp shoes before heading to the pizza joint. Bear, Sassy, and Bunny all got Diet Cokes and I got iced tea. Sassy warned the waitress that I drink to excess, so she brought me a pitcher of tea. I finished my tea and pitcher before anyone of them finished a single Diet Coke. In total, I drank 2 pitchers of tea, devoured a salad, and ate my share of pizza before Bunny and I went in search of new pants for me.
The closest outfitter only had 6 pairs of shorts in the store. I tried them all on before settling on a pair. We also got some fuel and a couple of meals. We then figured out how the trolley system worked before heading back to the hotel for the night. We showered before going to bed at our usual time of 7ish. In all that time I still didn’t have to pee. I might have been slightly dehydrated.
EFG