Zero!!

Honestly, not many photos to show today because they all would have been of food. Pretty much ate my way through the day, caught up with friends/family, ate some more.

Sat outside and dangled my feet in the pool here and stared up at the peak of Mount Whitney.

Whitney is the mountain behind the mountain in the foreground. Strange to be looking up at it from the 90 degree day down here in Lone Pine and thinking about tromping through snow.

This is Ally. A hiker from Vancouver who has spent the last few days here in Lone Pine with us. She's taking a few more days off because her family is coming down to spend some time with her.

It was a perfect evening tonight, so we all drank a bottle of wine by the pool and felt like real, normal people on a summer evening. 

Aaaaaand then of course we walked across the street to McDonalds for ice cream. Just for the record, you can get a McFlurry WITH hot fudge AND caramel sauce. Hypothetically of course😜

Tomorrow, shuttling back up to the trail. Rested and clean. This will be a big week. Two big challenges. Mount Whitney and crossing Forrester Pass. The highest pass on the PCT and there is  still lots of snow.  We will plan to cross mid morning, while the snow has softened a little, but we don't want to wait until afternoon when it's too melted because that would mean a lot of postholing. Looking forward to the challenges!

Lone Pine

A surprisingly warm morning up on the mountain. Finished up the climb we started yesterday. More incredible views today. 

We decided to take a side trail down to Horseshoe Meadows and hitch in to Lone Pine for a day to get clean and fresh after a long stretch of dirty days. 

Supposedly an easy spot to get a ride into Lone Pine. Uh....no. Bad info!! The road out of the campground was about 17 miles long before you finally hit a road where you could possibly get a ride. Fortunately, a guy happened by and we loaded into his car for the ride in. 

And first stop (after dropping our packs at the Dow Villa Motel where John Wayne  stayed while filming westerns around here) was...

Stopped in for appetizer burger and fries, before showering and heading out for our real dinner. Ran into Aly there. A young hiker from Canada. She is bunking in with us tonight. BBQ for REAL dinner And then back to McDonalds for a little dessert. Yep, we were hungry!! 

The Dow Villa is in the shadow of Mount Whitney, which we will hopefully get to summit in just a few days, weather permitting.

Since we are finally in a town with phone service and wifi, catching up with friends and family tomorrow and also posting a few random photos from the last few days.

Tents on the river

Sunset on the river (photo cred to Murphy)

Arriving at Kennedy Meadows

Filtering water outside my tent.

Not a lot of places to stash our bear canisters at this spot, so we just placed them about 50 feet away. No bears so far!

Waiting out the hail under a tree a few days ago.

Today as we were leaving the PCT to take Trail Pass down to Horseshoe Meadows we ran in to our first park service ranger who asked for our permits. Had to dig deep in my pack, but we all had them and she also checked to be sure we had bear canisters for proper food storage. 

Signing off for the night with clean sheets and two pillows :)

The start of the beautiful Sierras!

The river was a great place to camp, but it made for wet, frosty tents this morning. But it was nice to wake up with the river meandering by.

Started up the first climb and it wasn't long until we hit snow.

More snow capped mountains in the distance. It was a long climb but the views were worth it.

And the sky today was a really deep, cobalt blue.

It was pretty spectacular today.

Another big climb coming up, so we hiked up a mile or so at the end of the day, so that it wouldn't be so overwhelming in the morning. 

Found a great spot for the night. Absolutely flat. High up and surrounded by big boulders. 

After we got here, some of the younger crew stopped by to chat on their way up, and they decided to camp here too. They even got a little fire going. Mismatch, Peter Pan and Bodie. Peter Pan and Bodie are brothers and they share a tent. It's the same tent that I have!! It's gotta be tight in there.

Sleeping at 9500 feet. Welcome to the Sierras!

Onward and upward

On the front porch of the General Store.

We had some really beautiful trail today. Purple wild flowers lining the trail, big cedar trees. It was fantastic. 

Even the burned section we walked through had its own kind of beauty.

I feel sort of rejuvenated. The last few hundred miles of desert I felt like I was just walking to get to something else. Now I feel like I'm there. 

We came down in to this wide open meadow with some snow capped mountains behind.

At the end of the day, we came to the South Fork of the Kern River and it was too pretty to pass up. 

Tents pitched in the sand down by the river in this incredible valley.

A few others camped here as well. Punkin' Pie and the Germans, Nedi and Colia. Tomorrow our first trip up to 10,000 feet!

Kennedy Meadows

Interesting place here. Feels a little like stepping back in time. Washer, but no dryer. No cell service. No wifi. $5.00 all you can eat pancakes in the morning! 

The good news is...my tent arrived on time. Both of them 😝. The one I attempted to order but never got to go through because of the REI website AND the one that Emily ordered for me. SO, I kept one and Nuts (who is on his way home :( is returning the other to REI for me. The  newer model is more spacious and weighs less!

Bonus!

Kennedy meadows general store is an interesting place. We did laundry, showered and hung out on the front porch with everyone else

This is where we are required to start carrying a bear vault as we head in to the Sierra Nevadas. All our food is stored in the vault and at night we set the food away from our tents and sort of prop it in between some rocks. Hopefully smell proof so the Bears don't bother it.

That's it sitting out side my (old) tent. They're pretty huge. I haven't even attempted to fit it inside my pack yet. Should be interesting.

Skittles was here today and had an awesome video that he had taken of a bear standing up against a tree scratching his back! So cool. Kind of like Ballou in Jungle Book.

Tomorrow we hike out. Shouldn't hit snow for about 50 miles. We are ready and have a tentative plan for our mileage but are flexible. There is a chance of more snow/rain over the next few days. So excited for this new part of the adventure!!

Heard some very sad news today. Bill Ackerly (known as 'the ice cream man' to AT hikers) passed away this week. He was a retired physician from Cambridge who lived about 100 yards off the AT in New Hampshire. He invited hikers to stop in for some ice cream, a soda, a game of croquet and the joy of Bill's wit. He will be missed by all who had the joy of meeting him.

Bye bye desert !!

Got a bit of a late start this morning because we wanted to get things a little dryer before packing them up.

Big climb right off the bat, but we had it done by 11, and then it was a long gradual downhill and some flat.  This was the last stretch of desert. Yahoo!!!!!!

Some random photos of the landscape today...

Cool, twisted, burnt tree

Lots of these today. And they smelled great. The most prevalent color of wildflowers seems to be purple and yellow.

Came across these sticks spelling out 'medicine woman'. Not sure what it means but I thought it was cool.

We are at the end of the desert section and we got to walk a few miles beside the Kern River. So pretty and really great to see running water!!!!! Last days to be carrying several pounds of water and my shoulders will be happy about that.

Came to 

And jumped for joy because it means we are heading in to the Sierras!

Unfortunately, Nuts knees are not feeling great, so his wife will be picking him up tomorrow. He still managed to do 21 miles today to get to Kennedy Meadows General Store. It's one of those iconic landmark places on the trail. Every time a hiker wanders in, everyone on the porch cheers.

They allow hikers to camp behind the store so we set up tents and then heard that Grumpy Bears Restaurant and Tavern just down the road, runs a shuttle back and forth. Jumped in on that and finished the day with a good burger/fries and a milkshake. Ah! Tomorrow we are spending here, checking the weather report and formulating a plan for this next snowy section.

Cell service is beyond spotty here, so will update as I can!

Did I mention it's cold in the desert?

Woke up this morning to overcast skies, so put our pack covers on just in case. After a few miles, it started sprinkling, so put on rain jackets. Then it started pouring which quickly turned to hail. A group of us huddled under a tree to try to stay a little dry. 

We had two pretty good sized climbs and as we were ascending the second one, there was a huge clap of thunder and lightning. Obviously don't want to be on top with lightning, so we just sort of lingered where we were. Freezing our butts off!!! No where to take cover and didn't want to climb any higher. Fortunately, the really dark clouds passed over quickly, and we charged up and over the top so that we could start down before the next round came through.

There were some pretty cool, dark clouds today.

The last four miles were downhill, so made quick work of them, but the rain started up again with about 1.5 miles to go. Got to our camp spot, threw up our tents, heaved everything inside and dove in. Grateful to be in out of the rain, even though we were pretty soaked and very cold. Thank goodness for dry sacks. Everything in my pack was still dry, so I peeled off the wet, put on warm dry clothes, blew up my air mattress which kept my sleeping bag up off the wet. And then the ☀️ came out. Just for a little bit before it dropped below the mountain, but long enough to get out and have dinner and dry a few things out.

And as for my tent...THANK YOU EMILY!

Good timing for tent buying at REI because they have a big sale on (it goes until the 30th so if you need gear, check it out!) Bad timing for REI because their website went down. I have very limited windows of service out here, and I couldn't get s call to go out, but thank goodness for texting. Emily got my tent ordered and it should (fingers crossed) be at Kennedy Meadows on Friday. 21 more miles of desert!

Ridgecrest to Joshua Tree Springs

Lingered around the hotel for a bit this morning eating breakfast and getting organized. When we got there yesterday, we were so dirty and the linens were so nice and white, that we sat on the floor until showered. Think Pig Pen from Charlie Brown. 

Deb and Nuts picked us up around 11 for the drive back to Walker Pass and Nuts decided to give his knee a real test and hike with us for the 50 miles to 

Kennedy Meadows. 

Ridgecrest is a town that exists because of the Naval Base there. They have about a million 😳 acres and it is where they develop and test weapons. He is a recently retired engineer and worked on the tomahawk missile. It was pretty cool hiking this section with him, because this is his 'backyard' so to speak. So he knows the terrain and the peaks. And the planes flying overhead. Like the F/A 18's (fighter/attack) that we've been seeing.

Did a bit of climbing, but it was gradual so not too tough. 

Saw some huge granite mountains 

And I still marvel at the vibrant flowers that can grow out of a rocky, sandy mountainside.

Got to our campsite relatively early and it was actually warm enough to dine outside. Sleeping beside some more Joshua trees.

Saw a beautiful sunset

And nestled in to my tent for the night. Except that my tent won't zip!!!!  Yikes!! Managed to trick it in to working for the night but I will be contacting REI tomorrow. Fortunately, they have a big sale on tents right now :). Definitely do not want to head into the Sierras with a zipper less tent!!

Ridgecrest!

After 4 nights out, we were ready for a town day. Showers, laundry and real food (you know the drill :). We had about 10 miles to get to Walker Pass where Nuts was going to pick us up. With basically no cell service for four days, we kept checking as we were hiking down so we could text him when we arrived. No such luck. Got to the road and ...no service. And Ridgecrest is about 23 miles away. While pondering our choices, a car came down the road and I jumped up and stuck my thumb out. And by jove, that very first truck stopped. The sign of a good day to come! A really great couple (and their big airdale, Shrek) loaded us in the back of their truck and gave us a ride down to highway 178 where we could get service.

They were so great and interested in what we were doing because their daughter has mentioned wanting to hike the PCT. Even gave us some water and Gatorade, which after this long dry section, was so welcome!

Nuts was at the intersection to pick us up within 20 minutes and our first stop was the Springhill Marriot, where the price was a little steep, but when they found out we were hiking they knocked $80 off our room! Impressive and unexpected considering we were covered in four days worth of sand and dust. Went to a Mexican restaurant for their lunch buffet, and let's just say...they may have lost money today :) Did our chores, made phone calls and then Nuts came and took us to his house. It just so happens that he is a bit of an expert on the making of homemade ice cream, so we got a sample (aka huge bowl) of key lime ice cream and cookies and cream, made with girl scout thin mint cookies. 

This is Nuts and his wife, Deb. So good to us and the ice cream was top notch!

His knee is much better and he is going to hike with us for awhile tomorrow. Yay!!

The middle of nowhere... The sequel...

Very windy and cold last night but this morning we woke up with the sun beating down on our tents and it was great!  Warm and toasty. There haven't been many warm mornings.

Started hiking and saw lots of jackrabbits. They are so big and their ears are enormous. Got a pic of one 'hiding' in a stand of Joshua trees.

Today we were still literally in the middle of nowhere. We did see one power line and 2 dune buggies. Otherwise it was...

Had a few good (and by good I mean substantial) climbs, which seemed a little harder because they were 'beach mountains'. You know how when you see people in the movies running on the beach and it looks so carefree and effortless? And then, you go run on the beach and you think, "Dang! This is hard!"   Then add a mountain with a few inches of deep, loose sand. One step forward, half step back. On the bright side, good workout for calves and butts.

Leapfrogged with Skittles today. Good guy.

Much of today's conversation revolved around town food. After four 20 mile days, tomorrow we get to Walker Pass, where our friend, Nuts,(who had to get off the trail a few weeks ago with a knee injury but is hoping to jump on again soon) is going to pick us up. He lives in Ridgecrest which is nearby.  We are going to spend the night in Ridgecrest and resupply and load up on good food. 

I'm trying to think of some creative new trail foods. We have a long stretch where we are going to have to carry about 10 days of food. Today at lunch I was so sick of everything in my food bag, even...dare I say it....the birthday cake Oreos!!! 😳It's time for some changes. Nice to have my stove now because that opens it up a bit. Things are going to get tough over the next few weeks and calories and protein are crucial.

In big news today we did see...

The snowy Sierras looming in the distance!! That's Mount Whitney out there. Highest point in the lower 48. The PCT does not summit Whitney, but many PCTers take an extra day and do the trail up to the summit. Hoping to do that but we shall see. There's still a bunch of snow up there.  We won't be there for a over a week, so hoping for a little melting.

But for now, signing off for the night, dreaming of a huge salad with lots of avocado, a large bucket of movie buttered popcorn (with butter evenly distributed throughout) and of course , a Diet Coke :)