PCT Day 88 to 93
July 27 to August 1, 2021
Mile: 901.1 to 906.6
Start: Deer Creek campsite
Finish: Hotel in the ski resort town of Mammoth Lakes via Red’s Meadow
This morning we woke up super early and hiked out with granola bar breakfasts in hand, ditching the young kids who started a campfire last night even though it’s an extreme fire danger in the area. Despite the trail being soft pine needles and flat, Shannon’s toe was still hurting a lot and 5 miles that should’ve only taken 1.5 hours took a lot longer as poor Princess North Star was limping and going pretty slow. Hopefully it’s not a stress fracture…
On the way through the sandy forest of tall lodgepole pines, we passed by a campsite filled with probably a dozen or more hikers who were posted up only a few miles from Red’s Meadow. Many were still sleeping but we waved a silent hello to a couple of guys who looked about ready to hike out to civilization. The trail soon entered into a burn zone with lots of juicy wax currant berries and spiky gooseberries ripening up under the sun. There was no shade to be had as acres of timberland had burnt down leaving behind towering charred “widowmakers” as souvenirs from a forest fire that had happened in 1992. It’s crazy how long it takes for the wilderness to grow back after a fire – almost 30 years later the place still looks like a burned meadow instead of a forest.
I was so excited to reach town that I started running down the trail but quickly stopped when several horses trotted up the trail towards us. These were some of the first horseback riders that we’ve seen along the entire trail but it made sense since Red’s Meadow had a big horse barn for tourists to go on trail rides at nearby Devil’s Postpile National Monument and 100-foot-tall Rainbow Falls. I waited for ole hopalong Shannon to catch up, raggedy and busted up with his single hiking pole, gimpy foot and dusty shorts and we took the side trail to Red’s Meadow Resort to catch the hourly tourist bus into the town of Mammoth Lakes. Hopefully resting for a few days and having Shannon’s foot get looked at by a doctor at the hospital would set us straight.
At Red’s Meadow we dropped our backpacks off at some tables near the bus stop and immediately were drawn like flies on honey to the resort’s hiker box. A hiker box is a place where thru-hikers leave behind any gear or extra dehydrated food that they don’t need and can take from the box whatever they might need that other hikers leave behind. The phrase “One hiker’s trash is another hiker’s treasure,” describes a hiker box’s purpose perfectly. Since of all these short time hikers on the popular John Muir Trail often send themselves too much food, they’ll throw it into the hiker box. This hiker box was truly a treasure chest of amazingness filled with expensive meals, hiking gear and I even found some mystery booze that turned out to be some Jack Daniels whiskey! After several days in the woods with broken gear and possible broken feet, I felt like I earned an 8am drink of Jack and washed it down with a bottle of unopened Diet Coke found in the hiker box.
Shortly after 9am, the first shuttle bus into town arrived and we hopped on. The road out to civilization was windy, washed away in places and sometimes only 1 car wide with rock slides on one side and a steep cliffside drop off on the other. Our bus driver was an absolute beast, expertly navigating a full-sized city bus around curves and cliffs with oncoming RVs, trucks and other buses. When we arrived at Mammoth Mountain ski resort we were a little confused and overwhelmed because then we had to catch another two or three buses to get to town and the breakfast spot that we wanted to chow down at. At Mammoth Mountain there were hundreds of mountain bikers everywhere zooming around, getting off of the bike shuttle bus and taking the chairlift up to the top of the summit to zoom back down the ski trails. Basically it was chaos on wheels and we tried our best not to get run over.
We rode the trolley into town with a really nice father and son team from the area who had been hiking the JMT and told us a little bit about the town of Mammoth Lakes and the terrain in Yosemite National Park which is coming up on the PCT. They also dined at the breakfast spot and we chatted about them hiking the John Muir Trail and how they were kind of mentally done with the hike so they were getting picked up by their mom. After breakfast, we said goodbye to our new friends and checked into the hiker friendly Shilo Inn Suites hotel.
For the next several days we rested up to heal Shannon’s foot. While we were in town, Shannon went to the hospital down the street and found out that luckily it wasn’t a stress fracture – it was gout. So no more steaks, hamburgers or beer were in Shannon’s near future otherwise he won’t be able to walk very well and we still have so many miles to go. So it’s going to be a vegetarian diet cleanse for the next, um, forever? I think we went too hard in the paint in the town of Bishop, California after we got married and celebrated with too much good food and drink. It sucks getting old! We’ll see how Midwestern meat-and-potatoes Shannon can handle the new vegetarian diet as I’ve never known him to choose vegetables and tofu over meat. At least his foot isn’t fractured or the injury is more serious.
In town we relaxed for a few days while I did some errands for Shannon and kept busy by fixing torn gear, journaling and watching the Olympics as narrated by Snoop Dogg and Kevin Hart. Downstairs in the hotel’s hiker box, Shannon found what he thought were some fancy Nuun electrolyte tablets. They turned out to be dehydrated toilet paper tablets that are not so good for eating, so it’s a good thing Shannon didn’t put the tablets in his water and try to drink it because he would have been eating toilet paper. We had a good chuckle about his accidental attempt to eat toilet paper.
The town trolley was a free bus that took you all over the city of Mammoth Lakes which was really nice if you didn’t want to walk. I ended up skipping the bus and doing a lot of walking to stretch my legs and purchase groceries and supplies for us. At one point we got on the bus to switch hotels but we found out quickly that if you didn’t yell super loudly at the trolley driver, he would just keep driving all around the town past your stop and you’d get to see everything (even if you didn’t want to).
Shannon’s foot felt a little bit better after a few days of rest so we decided that we’re going to go back to the trail now that he’s rested, eating healthy and changed his hiker food diet. Hopefully this will help relieve some of the pain from the gout crystal inflammation in his foot. Most of the food he’s been eating on trail has to be changed because it has too many chemicals called purines. So instead of oatmeal, he’ll have to eat grits; tuna packets switched out to plant protein like nut butters; meat broth noodles will go to vegetarian dishes. We’ll see how the new diet goes! Hopefully we’ll make it to Canada together.
Now all we have to worry about is the forest fires that seem to be exploding everywhere. As of today it looks like we’ll have to skip 300-400 miles of trail in northern California and southern Oregon due to fire closures and smoke. We’re going to hike up to South Lake Tahoe by next weekend to see our friend Brad from Kentucky and also meet up with our buddy Spencer and his lady Angie from San Francisco. Crossing our fingers that we’re able to make it up to Tahoe and that the fires in western Yosemite stay under control.
