Brad's Adventure

Days 49-52

Miles 703 – 749

We made it! Everything is different now, there are these things called rivers, and trees, and lakes. It’s wonderful. Spirits are high, Seth has changed into his PCT sophomore year outfit. 

These few days were pleasant, and the acclimation process had begun. The first day we hiked up to 8,000ft (from 6000) to a beautiful meadow with a bridge and camped there. As the anxious one in the group, it was my job to convince everyone to spend a night between 8-9k feet before we went straight up to 11000. Luckily I’m also the trail crusher who wants to push farther every day so it wasn’t hard to convince the group to stop after 14 miles. There was a small army of tents in the meadow and I got yelled at to be quiet around 8 so I went to bed early.

The next day was a big day, we hiked straight up to 10000 feet and spent the next 22 miles going up and down. Hot mess and I were feeling good while Cameron (now called Playlist) and Seth were struggling with the elevation + the incline. They caught up after an hour at lunch and were going to take a long break so Hot mess and I hiked ahead to our spot we had originally planned on. We’d be meeting up the next day to go into Lone Pine anyways.  We got some cool views, including a valley with a dried up lake I forget the name of.

The next morning we did the last 9 miles, cutting down trail pass to cottonwood pass trailhead. Seth and Playlist showed up a few hours later and we caught some trail magic from some guys who did the PCT last year. Their names were John and Ryan. Ryan lived in San Diego and was buddies with the Owner of Pure Project, a beer company, so we got some free craft beer! One 16oz IPA hit pretty hard at 10000 ft. It was really good too.

We got a ride into town and had some problems to solve. Hot mess needed a new backpack, and my new shoes had crapped out after 50 miles. Also the grocery store prices were absolutely horrendous. There were pints of ice cream “on sale” for $10. By the time we had gotten dinner and settled into the hostel it was already 7 so we decided to take the bus to Bishop tomorrow.

We caught the 8:30 ride to Bishop and headed straight for the gear store. The original plan was to quickly get stuff done, and get the 1:30 ride back to lone pine and hitch to the trailhead and get 10 miles in. That fell apart pretty quickly. It was noon by the time I had picked out my new shoes and we hadn’t eaten yet, or gotten the resupply done. We decided to make the day a 0 and go to Schats bakery. The sandwich wasn’t amazing but they had the best apple fritter I’ve ever had in my life. We went to smart and final, my new favorite grocery store, and did our resupply. They had everything I needed, as well as a 3.75 pound tub of peanut M&Ms for $16. We spent the next few hours in the park repacking everything into ziplocs and playing Tetris with our food trying to shove 6 days worth into our bear cans. With our new bear cans, ice axes, and spikes, our packs were very heavy.

We caught the 6:30pm bus back to lone pine, got some incredible food from a local taco truck, and crashed at a motel. Overall these 42 miles were a nice teaser for the proper sierras and gave us a chance to adjust to the new weight of our packs and terrain.