The Adventures of...: Days 50-51

Day 50, 0 miles, still in Bishop

We are trying to enjoy our forced "zero" and look on the bright side of things. And I have to admit, today has been pretty relaxing. Besides a few chores (grocery store for some extra food items and the outfitter for some much needed new socks for me), we didn't have much to do, which was nice. We got things organized in the motel room, Josh planned out our next several legs in the Sierras, and we stopped in at the local bakery.

For the first time since leaving home back in April, I got the craving to watch TV. We watched several movies on TV (Double Jeopardy, Father of the Bride, and Red Eye, in case you were wondering), as well as some other miscellaneous shows. I'm probably good on TV now until July.

Tomorrow we will head back to Independence and hope, hope, hope our stuff is there. To be continued.

Bishop, CA

11 days of food won't fit in our bear cans.

Day 51, 6ish miles, endpoint somewhere on the Kearsarge Pass Trail (off the PCT)

After a few phone calls this morning we finally had some good news: our bounce bucket was tracked and shown to be delivered to the Independence post office. We hitched a ride south 40 miles back to Independence with Sugar Mama, a former PCT hiker who lives in Mammoth, a town we will get to in a few weeks.

At the post office we retrieved all of our packages, much to our relief. We then scrambled to charge batteries, refill toiletries, and backup photos. Finally we had everything finished and were ready to get back to the trail.

We stood along the small street that led back up to Onion Valley, hoping that a car--any car--would pass us by. The very few that did drive down the road did not pick us up. It was 4:30 and not many people head up to a trailhead that late in the day. I began to believe it would be impossible to get a ride and that we would have to wait until the next morning.

After about 30 to 40 minutes of waiting, a guy half a block away at the post office waved to us and shouted "Get in!" We happily ran over to him and were introduced to James, the campground host at the Onion Valley campground who just so happened to be driving back up to his post. James lives in Orange County and at 50 is semi-retired and just recently took the camp host gig. He will be there until October, and told us he loves the job.

We made it up to the trailhead just past 5pm, where we met another interesting person: Norman, a 70 avid hiker and former mountain climber with immense knowledge of the Sierras. He was finishing up a hike when we ran into him. He shared some information with us and also told us some stories about climbs he had done on various peaks. Turns out Norman is also an author. He gave us an autographed copy of a book he wrote about a pioneering mountain climber of the Sierras named Normal Clyde. We enjoyed our conversation with him so much we almost forgot about hiking and got a late start, finally leaving after 6pm.

The hike up Kearsarge Pass with our heavy packs (filled with 10 days worth of food) was miserable, but we made it. Despite the promise we made to each other after the nighttime Mt. Whitney hike that we would not do any more night hiking, the sun set on us before we got over the pass. Luckily it was almost a full moon; we didn't even need headlamps.

We found a camping spot on the other side of the pass and are still a couple miles from the PCT. Once we rejoin it we will hit Glen Pass, which our guidebook describes as "scary." Should be fun!