PCT Day 62
July 1, 2021
Mile: 730.8 to 744.5 (plus 2 miles via Mulkey Pass Trail) (15.7 miles)
Start: Death Canyon Creek campsite
Finish: Portal Motel in Lone Pine, CA via the Mulkey Pass Trail
We woke up in the dappled shade, the cool air and soft breezes making it super difficult to get up early to hike into town like we had planned on. The alarm this morning was one of the guys coughing loudly at the campsite a few hundred yards from us and potentially throwing up. Lovely… We headed out quickly, packing up our bear canisters and climbing up a series of switchbacks. We came to some totally rad campsites perched high above the valley below. Slowly we took a careful peek over the edge where a sheer several thousand foot cliff dropped to the desert valley floor. Not going to lie, the view was pretty scary and our legs shook a little as we neared the edge.
Onion Valley below used to be a giant lake a hundred years ago that has since dried up because all the water rights have been purchased by the city of Los Angeles over the years. It’s a very sensitive issue and hotly debated because supposedly the city of Los Angeles tricked a lot of people into believing farmers and families were buying the land and the water rights for agriculture and ranches. The buyers were bribed or paid off to give the water rights exclusively to the desert city of L.A. So the giant lake that once had steamboats operating on it has now dried up into the toxic dust that blows around everywhere and supposedly has caused unnaturally high incidences of cancer in the area. The Owens Valley today was weirdly colored salt flats, a desolate place where no one lives since it’s all owned by L.A. As we’ve seen in many places on the Pacific Crest Trail, the water from the mountains doesn’t get to feed the valleys anymore and the lush land dries up into desolate deserts while the water is piped directly to satisfy the appetites of Los Angeles.
In the sunshine, Shannon and I hiked under huge twisted bristlecone pine trees, not really talking a whole lot and just enjoying the beauty of the mountains. Someone on the trail ahead of us creatively voiced their frustration about being on the PCT with a message made from pine cones spelling the word, “Sheesh!” It was interesting. We hiked on and ran into our buddy Diamond again who was eating lunch at a gorgeous meadow near the only water source for about 10 or 15 miles. It was very windy on the edge of the meadow but beautiful and I sat down in the woods to cook a quick lunch without my stove blowing over and starting a forest fire. Shannon really wanted to get into town today where we were going to meet a Trail Angel named Grateful who was going to sign our confidential marriage certificate as he was an ordained minister. The wind blew all my stuff around as I tried to hurriedly cook some instant rice mix for lunch and I had to chase around my sitting pad, clothes and other items that the gusts from the meadows had dispersed all over the forest. Shannon wasn’t hungry for lunch because he’d already eaten about five granola bars while hiking and was anxious to get moving. I chowed down as fast as I could on a mess of undercooked rice and we got a move on it.
A few miles up trail we veered off of the PCT at the Mulkey Pass trailhead junction and took a 2 mile side trail to resupply in the tiny town of Lone Pine, California via the Horseshoe Meadows campground. On our way down, our excitement grew and we kind of lost it in the sun laughing about some ridiculous things we’ve seen on the trail so far. It was funny getting off the well groomed tracks of the Pacific Crest Trail and hopping on a trail that’s not super well maintained. I felt spoiled being on the Pacific Crest Trail as the side trail we were on looked like a cow path with tons of spur trails that made it difficult to navigate. Speaking to some locals cowboys later, we found out that this side trail was actually a cow path to move the herds between mountain Meadows and there were so many options to hike that you could easily get lost. The trail descended off the mountain and spilled out onto the gorgeous Horseshoe Meadows with stunning gray rock slabs in dark blue mountains rising in the distance, the metals are filled with yellow and purple wild flowers with a creek running through the center of it. We heard cows lowing agitatedly in the distance and saw a couple horseback riders approaching the trail. We crossed the meadows and hiked up into the forest where we skirted a huge horse corral and pen, and made it to pavement. The road was 20 miles into Lone Pine or something like that. And so we waited by the side of it with our thumbs out a bear sign on not too far from us as we tried hitching in the hot afternoon sunshine, quite a few cars left or passed us when we were filming it, and of course, it wasn’t. Everyone past us with their brand new cars or nice new cars. The most beat up old pickup truck was of course someone that pulled over to give us a ride. It was actually there was two actual cowboys just finishing up for the day, cattle rustling. They were super sweet and told us all about the valleys, the bullshit with LA and Owens Valley being dried up the canyons and what it was like to be a cowboy, in this day and age, it was so cool. Sitting on the dusty bucket seats winding down a sketchy asked mountain road with them. They were really kind and wouldn’t take our money when we offered to give it to them.
We got dropped off by the young cowboys just outside of town, and walked in with our backpacks where we got a nice room at the Portal Inn. Shannon and I grabbed some gluten free pizza for dinner at Pizza Factory, which is like a West Coast pizza chain I guess. We talked to some guys who were going to summit the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states, Mount Whitney, in a few days and told them we might see them up there!
When we were coming off the mountain this afternoon, we noticed Mount Whitney had a nice new layer of snow on the summit which was concerning since we didn’t have our microspikes or any traction devices to get up and down the mountain safely in snow and ice. Maybe we’d wait a few days until the snow melted to summit Mount Whitney so we wouldn’t die. Ha! We checked out the hiker friendly grocery store and grabbed some essential hiking supplies like wine and beer. Shannon and I went back to the hotel, showered, did some sink laundry, drank some adult beverages and passed out.
