Day 37 – Nearo into Lone Pine
Originally published on Mason Hikes the PCT 2017.
Mileage: 12 to Lone Pine
When we started packing our bear canisters at Kennedy Meadows, we began to realize that they don’t hold that much food. As a result, our plan has been to go to Lone Pine to resupply, which will also give me a chance to get some new shoes! Hooray! 🎉
We had 12 miles to hike to get to a campsite that we could hitch from, so we got started early to have the best chance of finding a ride. I woke up to watch the sunset over the valley, which was really nice from such a high and unobstructed vantage point.
Once we started hiking, I ran ahead a bit to get the climbs out of the way and ended up with a bit of time to wait for people, so I climbed some awesome rock spires and sat staring at the amazing views.
We eventually met up with everyone except Dodger and we decided that hitching would be easier in smaller groups, so we split up. Dom and Robin waited for Dodger while Purple Savage and I walked down to the campground through a beautiful meadow with a fairly swollen river flowing through it. I can’t really explain how amazing it is to be constantly surrounded by water nowadays.
When we got down to the campground, we walked on towards the road and tried to hitch, where one of the first cars we saw stopped and through the window we saw… Dodger? What? How did she get here? Ruh roh. We worked out that she had come down a different trail and hadn’t seen Dom and Robin, so they were still up there waiting for her. She decided to hike back up to find them while we tried to hitch.
We eventually found a great guy named Chris that gave us a ride down the crazy mountain road into Lone Pine, where we eventually got a text from Dom saying they were down and we should head to the diner. When we got there, Dom, Hot toes, and Robin were eating but Dodger was missing. 😱 They hadn’t seen her and figured she had hiked down, so they stopped waiting and hitched down. Somehow, everything had gone wrong and no one saw each other and now Dodger was hiking back up to the PCT to discover that they weren’t there. Whooops.
Even without Dodger, my burger and milkshake were fantastic, and she eventually showed up after deciding that the boys had probably gone on without her. Life without cell phone service is a whole new challenge for all of us, but we learned a lot today. Plans are nice to have if you’re going to split up.
The rest of the day was eating, shopping at the town outfitters, and planning our first real foray into the Sierras. We’re planning to stop in Bishop after six days in the snow, so we’re carrying seven days of food just to be safe. I personally think that we can easily do more than 10 miles per day, but we’ll just have to see when we get up there.
For now, I need to rest in my hostel bed surrounded by the 9 other people in my room. Life is good.