I walked with Virgo out of Kennedy meadows at night 3 miles to a campground. From the campground we only had walked 12 or so miles the next day before we had more trail magic at swallow bridge. Tom, dip, crash, kooshie, and griffon were waiting with food, beer and margaritas. Unfortunately we had to leave the magic and keep walking and virgo and i did a 25 mile day and i reached 10,000 ft (3050 m) elevation for the first time. I enjoy walking with Virgo as he sets a good pace and we have great chats about life and the trail. I struggled big time climbing with the high elevations and after another big 23 mile day the next day, I knew had to slow down. Unfortunately I did not communicate this to Virgo very well and he ended up waiting for me at Crabtree meadows after 15 miles in the afternoon for god knows how long as I dawdled around taking photos of marmots and chatting to other hikers all day. He ended up leaving about 10 minutes before I got there and I have unfortunately not seen him since.
I walked to Wallace creek to set up camp where I was attacked by a pack of extremely agitated Mosquitos. I ran up the adjacent hill and set up camp on a ridge overlooking the mountains. It was the first time I had camped alone since tehachapi and it was nice to sit back and reflect on the trail so far - the miles I had walked, the desert sections i had finally left and the amazing people I have met along the way. The next morning I walked half a mile to the next stream and found 2 members of the whiskey gang as well as 5 members of the extended whiskey gang family getting ready to split camp. After 3 weeks of walking I had finally caught them.
That day we hiked up forester pass which is the highest point on the trail (13,153 ft, 4009 m). This year is an abnormally low snow year and we had about 20m of snow walking on the north side of the pass. This small section made me miss a switchback and i took the fastest way down to the lake, which was a cliff. I saw condor down at the base if the cliff and he asked what the hell i was thinking. I told him am a pretty extreme dude. The whiskey gang and i camped beside a lake to set up for a 7 mile walk over kearsearge pass into onion valley and bishop the next day. I woke up with my bag covered in frost and my sleeping bag wet from rolling around in the frost all night trying to get warm. As my bag has a semi waterproof pertex outer layer it wasn't too cold, but maybe it would have been a good idea to set up the tarp tent.
We walked out over the pass in the morning and I ran down the hill. having no food in my pack was liberating and it helped being able to go fast with minimal knee impact. We received some trail magic at onion valley where uber and bristle cone were camped out with soup, snacks, beer and soda. Über gave us a ride down to independence so we could hitch to bishop and I had a subway footlong. It tasted the same as in new Zealand.
I picked up a new pack frame that granite gear had sent to me as my old one had snapped 400 miles earlier and had started cutting my back 200 miles ago. Unfortunately my shoes did not arrive in time. Wiz, Dubz and I got a 45 minute hitch in the back of a white van into bishop sitting on pieces of used chip board. It was very hot in the back of the van with no air flow and no seats.
We got into bishop and mellow yellow had sorted out a room at a motel. We slept 6 stinky hikers in the room which was pretty cool as I had always imagined this exact experience when reading books about the pct over the last 5 years. Smelly but awesome.
I purchased some clothes from the thrift store and mellow, wiz and I hit the town. The locals were uncharacteristically standoffish but we found some friendly enough locals to drink with and we drank pitchers to we were kicked out at closing time. The next day was a bit of a write off and we got breakfast and sorted out our resupplies. As the supermarket was a mile away we pushed the shopping trolley with 6 people's food back to the motel like hobos. On the way we got hungry and dipped into KFC. As we did not want to leave our food outside we did the smart thing and pushed the trolley into KFC - i think we are now real hiker trash, or just hobos.
