For the climes we have been dwelling in recently, this was a warm wettish morning. Wettish only because for the first time in several days I didn’t wake up with a wet sleeping bag and a wet tent. The new home may have a serious ventilation problem, or night wet is just another bonus of sleeping at high altitudes during peak melt. Either way, it was near 40degrees, humid and a thin layer of clouds covered most of the 6AM sky. Bird cawed, “salty!” but I was finally already awake. Three minutes later Caveman grunted, “salt!” having been awake for a few minutes my reply was clearer and louder than my usual morning growl. Caveman garbled something of an appology. For the second morning in a row we took care of the morning stowing of the house, sorting food out of the bear vault, taking a short walk, then climbing on top of a giant granite rock to catch some morning rays from Ra. In Yosimite granite is plentiful and easy to climb; in this perpetual cold and wet we have become increasigly reptilian. We eat our poptarts and larabars and nearly hold our breath for the light to pour over the mtns and give us the strength to put on our wet shoes. It comes, we warm and then we’re off.
Less than thirty suncup steps into the day and the map is out. We had spent the night off trail, but figured we had a good spot on where it was headed. The morning light made the contour lines bend differently and we were plum confused about this big nameless face infront of us for over an hour. Turns out, the off trail campsite where we started was in a much better direction than where we were headed. Granite is easy to climb, but has no consideration for decent. It let’s you hike up with moderate effort but will sometimes require you to use a rope, parachute, or helicopter to retrace your steps back down. So we marched onward in the wrongish way trying to gracefully correct our mistake.
Twenty minutes of battling sun cups to a rock outcrop and we encounter another setback. While mtn goating back and forth down a granite face, a patch of man made blue and something shiny grabbed my eyes away from the trail. A blue external frame pack full of aging gear lay rotting under a snow melt water fall, a place things only fall to. I dropped pack, retrieved my ice ax and climbed the steep snow drift up to the perch. It was soaking wet and the material was begining to let itself go, one shoe was strapped to the outside and the cooking pot smelled like it had old food in it. I lifted the pack hoping to not find what is usually attached to the front of a backpack. It was heavy, no human or bones attached, but nearly fully packed. Nearly. The pack frame was wedged between two rocks and the thru-hiker sized sleeping pad, raincoat, and other shoe had spilled out of the pack and fallen another fifteen feet down. A punctuation mark that I didn’t like the tone of. It was wet and cold and the pack had been there atleast two years, since there was no body I didn’t look any further into the pack. I thought good thoughts for whoever used to carry that pack and retraced my steps back down. Two hours into our day and we were less than a mile from camp. The dwindling level of calories in the commy cans required us to do atleast 18 miles before sunset, we were not off to a good start.
One of the guide books designed to entice adventurists and deter novices had said something that stuck with me for months leading up to hiking in yosimite. “In one day in yosimite you will cross more water than you crossed in all of Maine.”. First, I noticed it was assuming we had already walked through Maine, a bold assumption to say the least. Second, it had to be wrong, we more swam accross Maine than walked accross it. Early in the day and it seemed that the book may have been right and this must be that day. Everything was melting, more water than the whole earth could possibly drink, pouring off the mtns. Pouring down the trail, rushing under our feet as we walk above on snow, flooding the valleys. Just making everything wet. By the time we made it down out of the white and into the brown and green it was ten and our first real creek crossing was already a foot higher than it’s bank expected. They sent me in first. Having a waterproof backpack comes with some responsibilities. At the worst point it was nearly nips deep and pushing what felt like 15mph. Crossable and crossed. As rigid as a popcicle I sat on a stone in the sun and offered advice through clinched teeth accross to the other two. They both held their packs above their heads and tried not to swim the same route I just walked. With no arms to hold the help of trekking poles I have no idea how they made it accross, and I have no idea what help I may have been able to offer if they had went for a ride. Good thing we all made it to the snow on the other side. Without much pause we continued uphill in search of warm blood in our feet.
As days melt away, hours melt like a Hershey bar in the sun. A couple of minutes full of several hours melted onto the dashboard of father time and the three of us found ourselves on the bank of the ninth or tenth “creek”(river) of the day. This one was different though. A dark, powerful green. Thirty feet wide at the narrow and well out of it’s banks. Where it wasn’t the bottomless green color it was just white. Obedient to the burden badass backpackness I packed away my camera and other electronics and began looking for a reasonable place to ford. I inspected the river with a different eye this time, not just for the least powerful place, but for what was down stream. Falls, rocks, eddies. No place was good, no place was not powerful. I picked a greenish whitish spot and began my crab walk out to the middle. Caveman was close by, knee deep in the water. Water like that makes you want to help, but you can’t. So caveman grew smaller and the water got bigger. I wasnt in up to my belly button and my left foot couldn’t find a home. Too many round rocks, too fast of water, too many tries. I looked at caveman square in the eyes as to silently tell him I was aware and then the river took me. No hand nor foot found anything it recognized. Skin had some idea of it’s surroundings, cold and wet with lots of painful hardspots. No trick in water I knew to keep my head above the surface worked. It was falling down a mtn at a much shallower incline than usual and absolutely freezing. Whatever stone I did find with a hand, foot or head would just end up folowing me down stream. I was playing human plinko – waterpark edition. Then I was motionless, pinned against a boulder, head up, right infront of the trail on the other side. Nearly by complete dumb luck I was on soil on the other side. And with no advice or help to offer to my friends on the other side. In shock I sat down and laughed uncontrolably till the other two showed up soaked as well. They had found a more reasonable spot to cross and had not had the same experience as I had.
Nightfall found us behind a gas station in the still snowed in and shut down Tuolomme meadows of Yosimite. We made our bearvault mandated 18 miles, but could not get s hitch to town for a commy can refill. It would be just like this day for four more days before we could get to a town and rest. Oh, adventure.

i hiked 52 miles in 36 hours through the night under a full moon to make it to kennedy meadows before caveman and yellow bird started getting worried.  i had sepperated from them the morning before to hitch into a small town for little ceasars pizza and some mtn dew.  i would hitch in and out and be on the trail by noon, hopefully catching back up with the mother ship before dark.  Lake isabella CA was a friendly enough place and i was able to get a ride half way back within an hour of hitching.  there is only one road around these parts and if you passed the gas station that i was thumbing in front of you were headed to where i was headed.  that thought didnt seem to cross anyone’s mind.  i stood infront of the chevron in Onyx CA for seven hours before i got a ride to the trail by a local on his way home. 

 Twelve hours and thirty miles behind bird and cman i leaned into the mtn at sunset with full resolve to reach kennedy meadows by the end of the next day.   The nearly full moon rose red over the ridges in the distance and clouds rolled in from the opposite to fill the sky with light.   On the east faces it was pitch black and twenty degrees on the west face i had stark shadows and lunar light i could nearly read by(still 20 degrees).  Three hours later i was 14 miles into the 52 and ready for a nap.  Tent was pitched on a bit of land with no pitch and hopefully no wind.  Five hours of sleep and back on the trail by 7AM.  38.2 miles to go before i quit, 38.2 miles to go for beer and burgers and the fabled kennedy meadows. 

  The fresh dusting from the freezing clouds lastnight had a short shelf life, the sun was out and the clouds were in hiding.  Atleast the big day was going to have nice weather.  walk walk walk walk walk walk.  break.   twelve more miles down, the last of the pizza from town.  back to our feet, walk walk walk walk walk walk walk.  tweny miles down, the sun is lower that it should be with 18.2 remaining.  walk walk walk walk walk .  sunset, the book says four or seven miles left.  the meadow is beautiful, a trout river glows red like the golden trout that swim in it,  pines and granite, sage and cactus.  night comes and all that exists is my footsteps.  the moon is tired tonight from our date lastnight, so headlamp hiking instead.  four miles pass and i still see no road, hear no dogs or lawnmowers.  sage field mazes, the sage maze.  ten o’clock, rolling hills, incandescent bulbs in the far distance.  still in the sage maze, hoping my trail is the trail and not the wrong trail, or not a trail.  10:30, the third and final cattle gate squeels closed and im on the road.  52 miles in 36 hours.  the last 18 miles of the hike are already forgotton from endorphines by the time i set up camp behind the quiet and empty general store.

A week ago I was in an epic battle with my pack and a mtn. I had the mtn licked no problem, I mean my legs burned and my head was down, but the mtn would fall under my heel just like the last. But the backpack had taken to fighting dirty and was working on cutting me in half right at my pant’s waiste. A hundred steps further into the mtn and the false summit showed his bluff and gave us a view of the real summit, a mile off and a thousand feet higher. “Where the hell is the easy section of this section?” my words flew over the ridge and dissappeared into the void. It was not that the Socal mtns were slowly beating me, I just never felt the super light pack from constant town resupply I was promised, and for the most part hitchhiking and trail magic didn’t seem to be part of the pct’s game. As I completed one of the biggest and most frustrating switchbacks to date I rolled over the top of a hill and found a child sized plastic skeleton hanging from a tree. Behind him, in the first shade we had seen in hours, was a gaggle of lawn chairs, an ice chest and a trash can. The cooler was topped off with Shasta brand knock off flavors and beer. The water filling the cooler was recently ice and the beverages went down smooth. The ledger said “oasis” on the front and had a letter from The Andersons taped to the inside cover. It read, “blah blah blah … 7 miles downhill blah blah blah taco salad everynight pancakes every morning. “Oh, here’s that awesome section I was promised.” Soda coma and late afternoon sun put us down for the night, we folded the camp chairs and pushed them out of the way, pitched tent and made the Anderson’s Oasis our home.
The next day was seven miles down hill to taco salad and the Anderson’s home. We pitched our tents in the backyard, ate ten pounds of taco salad for dinner and made friends with Joe and Terry. Joe and Terry Anderson are number two of three trail angels right in a row on the trail. The first, “hiker’s paradise” is in Aqua Dulce and ran by a wonderful former thru hiker Donna Saufley. We spent one night there coming back from LA and are told we hit the place on an off night. Nice and hospitable, but no raging party. The Anderson’s was also quiet our first night, but by noon on the second day I was surrounded by the biggest group of thru-hikers I had ever seen. We were incined to zero and scope out the new crop of colleagues. July found a trail name, (Rainbow Brite or Trail of Tears depending on her mood) she even found a Rando who she trusted enough to help her loose five pounds out of her pack. On the second morning at the Anderson’s we hit the trail well rested well fed and finally feeling some light pack action.
Uphill into the mtns, around a corner and downhill to the desert floor, downhill to hiker town. Hiker Town is an interesting place, owned by an eccentric “Richard” from the movie bussiness, the whole place is done up like an old western town. Hot showers, hot dogs, keys to a car and a C-store close by. Richard’s hiker town has been known to have legendary raging parties and lamborgini rides and who knows what other kind of debauchery. Unfortunately Richard was not around.
And neither was the crowd. The 8 of us that were there had a reasonable serving of butter fried hot dogs and adult sodas before we hiked on in the night. The wonderful thing about hiker town is it’s placement. The last possible place for a stop before the infamous aquaduct walk and Mojave bottom. The barley sodas and the new like minded group of hikers emboldened us to try a little desert night hiking. So we cleaned up our butter orgy mess and pushed on against the trail at sunset.
The last minutes of daylight provided enough light for good reflection on the section we had just finished. The desert, the inhospitable, uninhabitable had been our home for the last month and half and had been quite plesant as well as hospitable. So far, our plan of getting a jump on mother nature and crossing the desert in early spring had worked perfectly. We encountered rattle snakes and deer, foxes and coyotes. Climbed mtns, carried 30 miles worth of water, slept at randos houses, and walked 600 miles. The only thing that stood between us and where “the real hike begins” was the thirty mile paved over aquaduct. But our butter dog battle of the bulge and beer got the best of us and all 8 of us layed out under the stars like bums. Those windmills would have to wait for tomorrow sunrise.