Miles Hiked: 22.8
Total Mileage: 725
This morning I was the first one of the group awake at Kennedy Meadows General store campground. I walked over to the store to see if I could charge my phone and upload some blog posts using the wifi. There is no cell service at Kennedy Meadows. There isn’t any regular electricity either. Everything is powered off a generator. Since it was too early for the generator to be on, I couldn’t charge my phone yet. I didn’t want to leave with it at 50%. I went back to camp to pack up my things and get ready for the day. I woke everyone else up by doing so. I was excited to hike out today! After I was all packed up, I went back to the general store to hang out at the picnic tables on the porch with other hikers getting ready to leave. Around 7:30am someone started to cook breakfast and the generator turned on. Fry, Pippin, and I all got breakfast sandwiches before leaving. Lumber Jack hiked out before the rest of us. Fry, Pippin, and I all hiked out together around 8:30am. Today the plan was to hike 23 miles to camp at 10,000 feet on a ridge.
The first mile of the day was a road walk back to trail, once on trail we went through a sage brush Meadow. I assume it was still Kennedy Meadow. We signed an official PCTA register about three miles in before we entered a gorgeous pine forest. The bridge at the Kern River is where we took our first break of the day. Right before there we passed into the South Sierra wilderness and got pictures at the sign. At the bridge I gathered some water and we all took a snack break. Pinch caught up to us here and would hike the rest of the day with us. Pinch and I spent a significant time hiking together today mostly talking about poop, food, life and relationships. I was feeling great today. My favorite break spot was at the Kern River once again on a sunny and sandy beach. Here I cooked my dinner of dehydrated beef stroganoff. It was delicious! I really enjoyed laying in the sun surrounded by so many other hikers. It really is unbelievable how many people are on this trail. I continued hiking uphill the last eight miles to camp listening to a podcast about sleep the whole way. Halfway through I stopped to collect more water to drink at camp. The last three miles I took my sweet time. My pack felt overloaded with the three liters of water I collected. Luckily there were some awesome sitting rocks all along the trail so I took the opportunity to sit down every 0.25 miles. I took so many pictures and would work on writing my blog five minutes at a time. It was 8pm by the time I arrived at camp and set up a cowboy camp for the night. I was glad to be done hiking for the day and happy to be sleeping on the trail again!
Happy Trails!
-Early Bird
Des Hikes Thru 