From there, the trail dropped down below the intervening mountains, and I spent the morning following the contour of the hills. Finally, I climbed up to an exposed plateau where the trail follows a dirt bike road for a few miles. It was here where I broke my streak. Sitting along the side of the road, there was Andrew, another thru-hiker. We chatted for awhile, and I pointed out that he was the first thru I’d seen in just about 100 miles. While we were sitting there, a pair of dirtbikes came roaring through, and I’m glad we weren’t on the road. With all the turns this road makes, it would be hard for them to see us more than 20 feet in advance. We both went down to a shelter and spring for lunch and water, where we met up with the same bikers again. We all joked around about trading places, and we all agreed that the rolling ‘whoops’ on the road were a real headache. For us it meant shortening strides to go up and down these 3 foot humps, for them it meant slowing down or bruising a tailbone. I wanted to make this a big day, but somehow having lunch in the shade convinced me to chill out for awhile, and I spent about an hour and a half there.
Andrew and I continued on, and I maintained a slightly slower pace so we could chat. It was really nice to be able to talk to someone else while hiking for once, and it was neat to hear his story. He’d done the Appalachian Trail a few years back, and was frustrated by the fact that prospective employers didn’t appreciate it for the major commitment that it was. He said he’d been stuck in a dead-end job, and decided it was time to mix it up and hike again. The sacrifices he made to save up money for the trail were quite impressive, including giving up his apartment over the summer and living instead out a tent at a campsite in the Moab desert. As we were walking along, there was a crashing sound through the bushes to the right. Andrew called out, “Hey look at that bear!” Sure enough, not 100 yards away a 100 lb bear was running through the chaparral away from us. Not quite a cub, but definitely not full grown, he was still big enough to be scary if he was staring you down. So it took me 400 miles to see my first rattlesnake in the desert, but I’ve already seen my first bear nearly 50 miles BEFORE I even hit the Sierras. Sweet. I made a mental note to hang my food tonight, just in case.
We dropped down to the campsite at Walker Pass (another one of those places where it is the high point for a road, but a low point for the trail. The register there confused me a lot. Noah signed out on the 18th, on his way to Kennedy Meadows. Dang, he must’ve mixed up his dates a few days back when he left that note. Positive ID signed in on the 19th, so I’m a day behind him, as expected. As we walked down to the campsite to check for water (it was off...) we saw a car with Utah plates. Since Andrew was from Utah, he figured he might be able to use that as a conversation starter, and hopefully, bum a ride into town for the night. Turns out, the could was from Sweden, and their rental car had Utah plates. Bummer. The cool thing was though, that after chatting with them for awhile, they did offer to drive him over to Onyx to get his stuff, which was super nice of them. They offered to take me along, but I’m motivated to catch the guys, so I quickly put down my dinner, then tacked on an extra 4 miles. I had planned for the water to be off at the campground, so I had enough, but I would need an early start to make sure I didn’t get in trouble with the heat before I hit water again.
Miles Today: 23
Trip Mileage: 654
Photo: My first view of the snowy Sierras!!
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