Week Six and Seven Plus

Oh my goodness, somehow I’ve not kept notes since June 10th–how could that happen? Bear canisters need to be filled and packs need to be organized for an early start up to Trail Pass and then Cottonwood Pass tomorrow, so here’s a recap:

We met Daniel–yes, Daniel of the Mile 549 water cache–in Tehachapi at the German bakery! He’d been looking for me–I had placed a note as well as a contribution in his donation box at the cache. He had never received a thank you note before! He’s been running that cache for 16 years…and used to own a cabin on the hill behind the cache (it burned in the forest fire about a decade ago). The entire hillside used to be a pine forest.

We decided to skip the Tehachapi to Walker Pass section–too hot, too little water, and too scary for a family on a fun hike. That 80 some miles is on our calendars to complete next Spring break in cooler weather. We hiked Walker Pass to Kennedy Meadows South–to mile 700! The highlight of that hike was finally, finally, getting into some real water–Kern River. A small river–we managed to submerge ourselves for several hours until we suddenly realized we still had five miles to go in the 100+ degree heat to Kennedy Meadows. We ran into old trail friends at the KM General Store and visited for the rest of the afternoon. Chris got outfitted with a new, lightweight backpack.

And, then, it was off to Northern California and Nevada City to see the folks, get Freddy to his car so that he could drive back to Bend and resume his nineteen year old life. But before that…

We hiked the PCT from Donner Pass to Sierra City. Beautiful granite mountains, deep green valleys, and water, water, water. “Peaches” provided trail magic at Jackson Meadows lake, along with her three year old son. As we got closer to the North Fork of the Yuba River and Sierra City everything–the light, the creeks, the pines and firs and cedars–reminded me of my Sierra County childhood. So evocative. We spent the entire afternoon along the boulders of the North Yuba River.

After a day back in Nevada City, planning and repacking, we said good bye to our wonderful trail buddy Freddy as he headed up to Bend, said goodbye to our generous, parental hosts, and Cat and Chris headed back to Kennedy Meadows South–a six hour drive, in two cars. Not sure why we’re still shuttling the two cars! We were able to trail angel for a friend earlier on the trail as we left a car at Kearsarge Pass, and saw Playlist and Past Tense once again as well.

We did ok hiking north from KM but got a little over anxious about water sources–springs and creeks are drying up–and carried too much water weight up some steep passes. Cat’s tendonitis flared up again (after a year of PT, yoga and diligent strengthening) due to the heavy loads. In a decision reflecting the maturity of wise people in their sixties, we got off the trail for a couple days to ice, rest and quaff Motrin. And eat.

We experienced the wonderful generosity of trail angels when David (an ultra-marathoner from New York–he’s 57, started running in 2019 and consistently places second or third overall) and his wife gave us a ride from the trailhead to Lone Pine and again from other trail angels Valerie and Rich who drove us from Lone Pine to our car at Kennedy Meadows.

Now, it’s back to the trail! Tomorrow we hit a couple passes and oh my goodness, our first alpine lake! We’ll circle back to add some photos to this post later–it’s time to sleep!