Trail Day 42: Tentsite (mile 696.9) to Road (mile 702.2)

5.3 PCT miles

For the first time on the trail I didn't set my alarm.  I was only going a couple miles to Kennedy Meadows South and I told my Trail Angel I would be there by morning or lunchtime depending on how close I was the night before. I stayed in my tent for quite a while after waking up and, because I had left the tent fly off, I was able to watch the sun light up the granite mountains across the valley.

The mountains across from my tentsite lighting up.

I packed up everything and headed towards Kennedy Meadows South.  This is the last stop before the High Sierra, and everyone had been talking about it for a long time.  It almost seemed like this far away fantasyland, but I would be reaching it today.

Soon after I started hiking I hit the last piece of the scenery puzzle that, in my mind at least, officially made this the Sierra: a river cutting through the landscape. I celebrated in my head shortly before getting serious.  As a walked alongside of it, I tried to imagine where I would cross it.  I needed to practice this for the upcoming section, especially since there would be much bigger rivers than this one.  I did end up seeing some wider sections where the force of the flow would be spread out that would probably be doable.

The south fork of the Kern River.

Another view of the south fork of the Kern River.

The south fork of the Kern River from further down the trail.

After that I was surprised to come upon some small houses and motor homes. They were in an absolutely gorgeous location, but pretty remote. I’m not sure what kind of vehicle you would need to get out to them.

A cabin near Kennedy Meadows.

I continued down the trail, just in awe of my surroundings.  What was amazing is that I knew this was just a warmup to what I would see in the upcoming section.  After a while I realized I should have passed the 700 mile marker. I checked the Guthook app and I was at mile 700.6. Damn.  I was paying a little too much attention to the scenery.

As I backtracked the half mile to mile 700, I realized why I had passed it. Some jerks had rearranged the stones so that it didn’t look like it said 700 as you passed by. I rearranged the stones to read 700 and tried to prop my camera on my bag to get a picture of me with them.  Thankfully, a young couple I had been hiking with the past two days came by and were able to take my picture.

This is supposed to say "700!"

Posing next to the rearranged 700 mile marker.

I ambled my way to Sherman Pass Road, which would take me to the store at Kennedy Meadows. Luckily, as I approached the road a man had pulled up in a pickup truck to drop a hiker off at the trailhead.  He had just picked up the hiker who came to the road before me and offered me a ride as well.  It saved me a 0.8 mile road walk on a road that had no shoulder.  It turned out this was the famous trail angel, Tom, who lived on Sherman Pass Road and opened up his property for hikers to come and hang out.

Approaching Kennedy Meadows.

Thanks for the encouragement, mysterious rock arranger!

Tom dropped me and another hiker off at the store, and I went up onto the porch to drop my bag off.  There were plenty of other hikers there and one of them asked me if I had just arrived.  I told them him I had and got a round of applause from the table.  The other hiker that came in behind me didn’t get any kind of recognition.  I didn’t recognize the guys at the table but the could have been at the Walker Pass trail magic, and that was the reason for the familiarity.  There were a lot of people there and I was distracted by looking for my Trail Angel coming down the road.

I grabbed a couple of cold drinks from the store and sat down with the couple I had seen earlier today named Blossom and Mufasa. I chatted with them at the table and eventually the rest of the people I had been hiking around the past couple days trickled in. None of them had gotten a ride from the trail or applause when they arrived.  They were all going to try to get a ride to the famous Grumpy’s, a nearby restaurant.  They went ahead and I waited at the store for my Trail Angel.

My Trail Angel showed soon after that and we did two rounds of ferrying the crew to Grumpy’s.  However, by the time we actually got in the restaurant, not only was breakfast over, but they were shutting down because they were out of food. Hiker hunger is real!  My Trail Angel and I then left and picked up food on our way back.

Hungry hikers at Grumpy Bear's Retreat.