Fourth of July in Sierra City!

Day 84 – 7/4/15
Not far from Hwy 49
Miles – 8.2
Total Miles – 1249.4 (PCT 1195.8)

Our tents were wet when we got up due to condensation. Since we were in a very deep valley we would not get sun any time soon, so we packed it all wet and headed for town where we would dry our gear. We only had a few miles to go to get to Sierra City. We quickly reached the trail junction to the Wild Plum Campground. By this time, Logan was hiking with us and all five of us headed for the campground. We were hoping to find Sunny Side Up there. She was going to try and get a camp site for Over Easy. As we were walking through the campground, we stopped by a bathroom and Logan went on, but not very far. When we walked on, we found Logan at a campsite. A family of two boys and their parents called us over too. They had been hoping to see some thru-hikers. They were the Peachy family from San Francisco. Little Crow, Will, and Mama Raven grew very fond of their little black pug, named Pixie. They made us PJ sandwiches. Also, they gave us yogurt and cereal. Next they offered to drive us into town. All five of us eagerly said yes. We loaded everything into the back of their car and off we went with Pixie in Will and Little Crow’s lap. It was a short drive of three miles. Thru-hilkers are some of the laziest people you will meet. They do not want to walk any more than they have too. We said goodbye to the Peachys and headed to the store where our re-supply box was. We are lucky we sent our box to the store and not the post office because this is Saturday, July Fourth. The next time the post office will be open is Monday morning at 10:00am.
We sat down at the store and waited for 10:00 for it to open. Our box was inside, which is a good thing. Four other hikers have missing boxes and most have to wait until Monday for the PO to open to see if that is where their boxes are. I found power on the deck of the store and started to charge everything. When the store opened, we got drinks and our box and then headed across the street to a park, to sort it. I tried to call Kim to tell her we were here. My mom is in Reno and she would like to come and see us. The only problem is that there is no cell service. I asked around and no one has cell service. So I wrote an email and went to the store to send it. I got a connection but no data was going out. I checked with someone else who was trying the same thing and he was not having any success either. I asked in the store about the internet and found that a recent fire to the west destroyed ATT’s fiber optic lines and there was no internet. A short time later, while talking to C.C., I found out that she tried to use the land line and it would not call out. This town was totally cut off. There was no way to contact Kim, Danny, or mom. Our other problem was where to stay. All the hotels in Sierra City and the surrounding towns are all booked for the Fourth of July. The campground and RV park were filled. The last resort was the church that allows hikers to stay in their tents behind it, except for Sunday. It had row after row of tents, upwards of 20. Nobody wanted to go anywhere for the holiday. Some people hitchhiked to Truckee to see fireworks on Lake Tahoe. Therefore, our only real chose was to hike out of town.
As we did our box we were able to do a load of laundry at the RV park. We dried out tents and sleeping bags. Around 2:00, we went to have hamburgers. The store makes ½ pound and 1 pound hamburger called the Gut Burger. Will and Little Crow got the ½ pound and and Mama Raven and I split a 1 pound burger.  We also got milkshakes. An hour later, we went back for ice cream, three different flavors of Ben and Jerry’s. Finally we were ready to head back to the trail. While we were waiting for our burgers, Sunny Side Up showed to wait for Overeasy to arrive. She offered to drive us back to the trail head. Again, we eagerly said yes to the ride offer and we all piled into her car and in a very short time, we were back at the campground. Sunny Side Up offered to call Kim when she got a connection tomorrow so I gave her the number and a message. I hope they get it. We said our good byes and hit the trail. We hiked our way back to the PCT and then went on to its junction with Hwy 49. The trail at this point goes right up the side of Sierra Butte with very few places to camp. We went up for about .5 miles and found a level place. We were uncertain if we kept going we would not find a place to camp on the  steep hill sides. .  . and this is where we are on Fourth of July 2015, on the side of a mountain just above the highway.

Hummingbird

Mrs. Peachy

Pixie Peachy

CC

Lord Logan and his breakfast

Mammoth

Day 63 6/14/15
Mammoth
Miles – 8.7
Total Miles – 957.3 (PCT 906.6)
Since we are eager to getting into Reds Meadow, we got a quick start in the morning. Our campsite was on the west face of a mountain so we did not get sun for a very long time and it was a bit colder than normal. The one thing in our favor was that it was easy hiking. Soon after starting hiking we ran into Headquarters and Catwoman. He is from Germany and she is from Belgium. They skipped up to Tuolumne Meadows from Lone Pine to hike the Sierras southbound. They are doing this to avoid all the people. When they are done with the JMT,  they will be jumping up to the Canadian boarder and hiking south, for the same reason. Mama Raven and I agree that there are too many people on the trail. It is the consequences of the “Wild” thing. We often long for the quiet days when we hiked the trail in 1996. Weeks, if not months would go by without bumping into another hiker. If you did see someone, it was only in the towns. After leaving Headquarters and Catwoman we quickly hiked to Reds Meadows.
As we hiked, we decided to go into Mammoth. We have had some equipment break and they have some very good outfitters there. There are thee buses we needed to take to get to the town of Mammoth. Two of which are free and the third was is a $22 round trip for all of us. We were able to find new shoes for Will, replacement tent pegs, and new socks. In the end we got a room for the night and we will head back up first thing in the morning.

Getting out of Ridgecrest

Day 50 – 6/1/15
Clover Meadow
Miles – 7.3
Total Miles – 734.8 (PCT 709.5)

The plan was to get back to Kennedy Meadows and start hiking sometime midmorning. We put the packs on and headed up the trail at 2:45. . . .not quite midmorning. So what delayed us? Sitting around the hospital. As most of you know, Will broke his wrist back in February. A cast was put on it. On April 10th we had it re-x-rayed and unfortunately it was still broken. We told Dr. Park about leaving April 12th for a five month back pack trip. She agreed with us that a cast would not be a good idea on the trail thus a brace was to be worn by Will until we can get it x-rayed again somewhere along the trail. We needed the x-ray to find out if Will’s arm has healed yet. So thanks to grandpa Bob and Melody who insisted it was time to get an x-ray, we got the job done in Ridgecrest. It ended up being as complicated as we expected it to be (the reason why we have not taken care of it yet). It will take too long to list all the hurdles that had we had to go over to accomplish the task. We had to wait till Monday since the urgent care was closed on the weekend. Actually the hospital ended up taking the x-ray because urgent care would not do it. Wills doctor, in San Diego, will look at the x-ray if we can get them to her.  We were sent from one department after another. Three and half hours later, the x-rays were taken. It took five minutes to take the images. Nonetheless, the job is done! The results will not be known till tomorrow however we will not know the results till our next town day.
Since it was 11:30 when we’re done with Will’s wrist, we went back to the hotel and loaded all of our gear into the car and headed out to Subway Sandwiches for one last meal in town before going back up to Kennedy Meadows. Ridgecrest temperature was 100° and in Kennedy Meadows it was 74°, perfect hiking temperature. We stopped by the Kennedy Meadow store to drop off some extra food into the hiker box and then headed to the trail. We said our goodbyes. Dad and Melody helped us a lot with this for drop and we are very grateful. They provided a hotel for two nights. They fattened us up as much as possible with restaurants, made sure Will and Little Crow had all the ice cream they could eat, they were our taxi service to whatever stores we needed, and provided Little Crow with a special birthday party. Our good byes were a little teary eyed, especially for Little Crow. The hardest goodbye for Little Crow was to her new friend Pepper.
The trail was very easy across Kennedy Meadows, it was a very shallow up with a sandy path. We worked our way to the campground and stopped for water, then we headed up a valley. We stopped early in a the middle of a burned area, where the fire had missed a group of trees. We are considering this day a nero, because of the late start.