Had a very relaxing zero day in Mammoth yesterday. Seems that everyone was happy to have the zero. Beardoh went for a run in the morning and ended up going much further than planned on the Mammoth Town Loop. He was out for an hour and a half and the elevation was pretty tough on him. We got lunch (fish tacos!) with Mace and resupplied at the grocery store. Beardoh tried to cut down on his food, as we are doing less miles each day and his bear canister has been too full. Zero Day dinner was yoghurt and strawberries in our hotel room.
This morning we woke up in time to take showers before going out to breakfast. Had breakfast across the street from the motel at the Base Camp Cafe. It was decent, but pretty expensive. Mammoth is just plain expensive. We caught the first trolley of the day just after 9:00 and finally made it to our drop off point around 11:00. We saw Dara and Lionheart who were going to zero at Reds Meadow today. We took a wrong turn getting back on the trail and ended up having to backtrack a bit…probably cost us an extra mile.
The trail at the beginning was exposed and quite hot. The rest of the day was primarily up, but fairly gradual, so it wasn’t too bad. Sweetpea had packed her backpack poorly today and her bear canister was leaning to the side which was causing her back to be pulled in a bad way. We finally stopped in the late afternoon and Beardoh fixed it for her. She is going to start putting more of her stuff in her backpack from now on, as it allows the bear canister to sit better on the pack and not pull so extremely on the webbing attachments.
Tonight we are camping near the Duck Lake outlet. There are quite a few people camped around here…probably around twenty. Had dinner with another JMT hiker, Abe. He was carrying two bear canisters! There is even a coupled camped nearby who are hiking with two llamas as pack animals.
The scenery today was not very interesting until the end of the day when we started to get some nice views. The first part of the trail today was mostly burned sections. So, not too many photos today.
Daily Miles: 10
Total Miles: 74.4
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