Trail Day 62: Mammoth Lakes/Horseshoe Lake Trailhead to Soda Springs Campground (mile 911.0)

7.7 PCT miles, plus 3.4 miles side trail.

I woke up a little early at the hostel.  I still needed to pack my stuff up and transfer the last two journal entries to the blog. I also has no idea what the plan was for the day. When texting Songbeard last night,  it sounded like people would be having breakfast in town first, then heading to the trail.

I went upstairs to the lounge to sit on the couches and plug in my phone and power bank. The other hikers, who I didn't know, were also lounging,  eating breakfast, and watching Sports Center. I wasn't really able to add anything to the conversation,  so I just sat there while my phone charged. I hadn't been near an outlet the night before,  so my battery was down to 50%.

Eventually I got the text that everyone had been at Schat’s Bakery for 20 minutes. I grabbed my gear and headed down to the bakery,  hoping I would be able to eat as well before we took off.

Songbeard, Phoenix, Sage, and Julia all had their bags around a couple tables in the cafe area.  I sat my stuff down and went to the bakery section to grab a cinnamon roll. It was a sugar bomb and I wanted something more substantial before I hit the trail.

Luckily, they start making sandwiches in the cafe section at 8:30 AM, so I went and got a sandwich as well. After I ate that, I sat around for a long time. Songbeard and Phoenix seemed to be in a deep, extensive conversation. We ended up leaving the cafe at almost lunch time.

After a brief stop at Rite Aid, we waited for the trolley to take us to the village. From there we immediately caught the trolley that would take us to Horseshoe Lake and the trail that would take us back to the PCT. It was probably close to 1 pm by the time we hit the trail.

Entering the Ansel Adams Wilderness.

View from the trail.

We took the trail to the junction with the PCT, took a break, then headed down into the valley where we would have originally been able to come off trail with less of a walk had the shuttle from Reds Meadow been running.

The valley near Red's Meadow.

When we neared the border to Devils Postpile National Monument, we took another break. A couple of us wanted to detour off the PCT to see Devil’s Postpile (basalt columns) itself. Originally, this meant leaving and coming back to the same junction with the PCT.

National Monument boundary.

During the break, Songbeard suggested we take the JMT (which splits off from the PCT at this point, to go by it, and rejoin the PCT about a mile down. I didn’t want to cut off PCT miles, and as a California resident could see the postpile at any time, so I told them I would meet them at the junction with which they would rejoin the PCT. The junction ended up having an overview of Devil’s Postpile, so I got to see it anyway.

Devil's Postpile.

I met back up with the group and we had decided to go to a campground a couple miles down the way. This required a couple stream crossings. The first two were easy rock hops or had usable logs. The last one, about a mile from where we were going to camp did not.

I had been enjoying dry feet all day, something very rare in this Sierra section. I had also been enjoying the prospect of pulling on dry boots tomorrow morning.

The water crossing was so swollen we had to do it in two parts. The first part had a log that reached almost all the way across. Songbeard tried to grab another log to finish it, but it ended up not working out. We had to step in knee deep water to finish the crossing.

Songbeard attempting to add a log to complete the log crossing. 

The second part was supposed to be easy. The last few miles of trail have had official log bridges. They would be two logs lashed together and anchored to the banks. The tops of the logs were cut flat and scored to add traction. This water crossing used to have one of those,  but it was snapped in half. We carefully crossed it,  getting our shoes wet in the middle, then headed to the campground.

This log bridge needs replacing.

The campground was across from a beautiful (and intact) bridge and had picnic tables, fire pits, bear boxes, a water spigot, and pit toilets. It was much fancier camping than we had done lately.

One of the prettiest wilderness bridges I've seen.