PCT day 74 to 80
July 13 to July 19, 2021
Mile: 788.5 to 788.5 (+6 miles down Kearsarge Pass Trail)
Start: Tiny towns of Independence & Bishop, California
Finish: Unnamed alpine lake near Bullfrog Lake at Kearsarge Pass Trail
Shannon and I left the very friendly town of Independence, CA that was so small you could sneeze while driving through it and miss it. We had been trying to take the public bus up to the larger town of Bishop, California which we missed after getting conflicting information from the bus ticket office. One of the ladies on the ticket office phone was telling us that the bus was planning on coming today, and another lady told us we had the wrong schedule and the Internet told us a completely different story than the two ladies. Well, it was a little bit frustrating when we saw the bus stop briefly and then go by at the time that both the Internet and the second lady had told us it was coming. With Covid restrictions and finding people who will work, the bus schedules seemed to be kind of a crap shoot. As the bus drove by while we sat with open mouths across the street in disbelief, we cursed and decided that we’re just gonna hitchhike to Bishop, which was 40 miles north on highway 395.
At the hotel, kind owner Geetha let us sort through our resupply boxes in the shaded porch, despite it being well past our check out time. We spent a bit of time repacking and drawing a beautiful cardboard sign for hitchhiking that said in big boxy letters, “PCT hikers to Bishop.” Coloring in the letters with a ballpoint pen was tedious but we channeled our fury of missing the stupid bus into our work, shading the letters so dark and bold that you could probably see them from Mount Whitney. After Shannon’s pen ran out of ink, we decided our masterpiece was complete and ready to use as an aid to thumb our way up north up the highway.
We thanked Geetha one last time for her hospitality and stood on the side of the road smiling and dancing with our homemade hitchhiking sign. I wasn’t sure if it was going to work but after only about 5 or 6 minutes, a teacher pulled over and asked us if we wanted a ride. Claire was super sweet and we rode up north with her to Bishop with her dog, Page, who is named so because she ate through some of Claire’s books. Claire and Page were great company on the 45 minute drive up to Bishop. It was super nice talking to Claire who was headed all the way up north to Washington state to see her family. Page didn’t talk because she’s a dog but she did require lots of pets from Shannon in the back seat who was much obliged to give belly rubs. Claire, being a teacher, taught us what to do in an earthquake since we had never experienced one before. The drive passed quickly and Claire congratulated us on getting married as we thanked her for dropping us off at a book store in Bishop where she was going to do a little shopping.
The next few days we lived it up large, dining out, drinking, partying and celebrating getting married on the mountain a couple days ago. We stayed at a wonderful guest house called East Side, which was super beautiful and fun. We barbecued ribeye steaks, veggies and made homecooked dinner a couple nights to have some fresh food.
Guiltily we went to an all-you-can-eat frozen yogurt and toppings place 4 nights in a row where we definitely spent at least $120 on freaking ice cream. When I actually burnt my foot by pumping super hot caramel sauce onto my shoe a little too vigorously, we laughed at how indulgent we were being eating so much frozen yogurt. We then realized that we’re heading through black bear country back on the PCT and they would probably try to eat a shoe that smelled and tasted like caramel sauce. We tried really hard to wash the sticky caramel off my shoe and kind of succeeded but I was still nervous I might wake up one morning to only one shoe because a bear would take it! Our fourth night at the frozen yogurt place, the same worker guy was there and loudly announced as we walked in the door, “Welcome back! 4 nights in a row must be a new record!” We didn’t come back a 5th night.
The days we spent in Bishop we probably gained back all the weight that we’d lost while hiking. We enjoyed authentic tacos, seafood, Thai, steaks and even cooked out a couple nights after going to the grocery store. We lounged about, watching lots of TV, chilling and talking to friends and family on the phone. We definitely enjoyed our town stay. Bishop has a famous touristy bakery that we stopped in briefly. They don’t serve anything gluten free and it was complete chaos. Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people coming and going, we tried to avoid the place but you had to walk by it to get downtown. At the bakery we saw an old guy in a car accidentally drive into a man on a bike and crushed his leg with his car. Horrified and concerned as it was happening 50 feet in front of us, we ran over to the cyclist. It turned out the guy’s leg that almost got crushed was actually a prosthetic leg, made of like titanium or some super durable metal alloy. The cyclist’s leg, which we were horrified about seeing him get crushed, was actually 100% fine and it looked like it did more damage to the car. Crazy! The guy on the bike just moved along after the car driver kept apologizing.
The town of Bishop is famous for its “Mule Days” celebration as these crossed animals of horses with donkeys were so much more sturdy and reliable for transporting goods over the mountains in the early days that horses or donkeys on their own. Mules had been such a critical part of moving gear and gold over the mountains and so important during the Gold Rush in the 1800s. We had seen a team of mules head up over 12,100 foot Kearsarge Pass when we were heading into town. The mules were surefooted, strong and quick! Despite leaving tons of brown “road apples” behind, we couldn’t catch up to them on trail even with them loaded fully with a driver and heavy packs.
There were a bunch of storms that came through while we’re in town, and it kind of made us want to stay in town a little bit longer instead of experiencing the lovely hailstorms, bonechilling rain and lightning strikes out on the trail so we hung out for an extra day or two to avoid those. We later met a couple of hikers who had been out in the storms and said it was horrible. One couple said that they jumped in their tents as lightning struck all around them and 4-5 inches of hail stacked up around their tent. The lightning storms also struck trees, igniting huge fires and started the Dixie Fire, the largest single wildfire ever recorded in United States history, that continues to burn months after.
After several days of being well fed and well rested, we ended up catching a bus back to Independence from Bishop so we could get back to hiking the PCT. We now had a record of successfully boarding 3 out of the 5 buses we had tried to make, which was great. The bus driver tried to trick me when I got on because I ran inside to go to the bathroom before the bus arrived. When I came back out, the bus driver told me that Shannon had actually gotten on a different bus headed north, instead of going south back to the PCT. I freaked out for a second until the bus driver laughed and told me he was in cahoots with Shannon. Those little jokesters!
Back in Independence, we thumbed our way back to Onion Valley Trailhead to pick up the 7.5 mile side trail back to the PCT. After waiting about 45-50 minutes, we finally got a hitch from former PCT thru-hiker Skittles and a couple of her friends who were going to section hike part of the PCT. They were super fun, and it was great hitching up with them.
We hiked back up to Kearsarge Pass, the skies cloudy and overcast which was perfect weather for hiking. We headed up the hills and switchbacks, headed up to the pass going up past waterfalls, lakes and boulder fields without any issues. The chill hike was routine and calm until the cheese incident. In the middle of the trail, we found the block of cheese – a beautiful hiker treasure provided by the trail gods. The large pale block of Trader Joe’s English cheddar was lying unopened on the ground in its original packaging where some unbeknownst hiker had accidentally (carelessly?) dropped it on their way up Kearsarge Pass. It was perfect. Yes, there were small chipmunk or mouse bites on part of the cheese. Yes, it was mysterious food we found on the ground. Yes, we had no idea how long it had been out there but it was still cold. So, being “Leave No Trace” followers and also very food-motivated Hiker Trash, we picked up the glorious block of free cheese and packed it out with us for dinner. If we saw anyone who was missing a large block of cheese of course we’d give it back to them. But as we continued hiking, we also discovered some Trader Joe’s instant coffee packets that this careless hiker had also dropped. Hey, you lose it on the trail and don’t claim it, it’s fair game. So, we seized the day and seized the trail cheese, grabbed the coffee and headed out to camp.
Water sources were kind of spaced out getting back on the PCT so we stopped early, camping out at the lake we had taken cover from a thunderstorm on the way out to town a few days earlier. We inspected the glorious hunk of trail cheese, admiring it from all angles and declared it to be edible. Even though it was trail cheese procured from mysterious circumstances, we just cut away the little mouse bites section and it was still good. Yum yum!. No wonder I got a parasite that one or two times while traveling.
As we ate our cheese and dinner, we admired the clouds and setting sun and relaxed. We set our super full bear canisters that we could barely close next to the small pond in mud and hoped that the smell of the water and the mud would keep the bears away. All over the trail around here there have been signs posted about bears in the area who were very smart and eager to get hiker food. Some of the bears had even been harassing the hikers in hopes of grabbing a free snack and we hoped that they would leave us alone tonight.
At dinner when I was screwing my stove onto the threads on my fuel canister, I accidentally left part of the stove nozzle open and some very compressed gas rushed out and freezer burned my fingers. My fingers turned white and wrinkled, the skin that wasn’t instantly frozen and lost all feeling hurt like a freaking b***h. After a few hours, my hand thawed out and had small chemical burns on some of my fingers but it went away after a couple days. Going forward, I was going to make sure to triple check that the nozzle on my stove was closed before putting it on the fuel canister so I wouldn’t burn my fingers again. With my shriveled up, burned fingers, I was humbled that the price of the block of trail cheese was apparently freezing my fingers. Whatever – the trail cheese was so worth it!
