Spent the last day plus in Mammoth. Had a good time, got refueled and resupplied. Took the dial a ride bus out to the trailhead so we didn’t have to rely on a hitch heading out of a tourist town….which is generally difficult.
Walked 4 miles back to the PCT from the trailhead. There was some real interesting blown down trees in this section. It was like they were snapped in the middle of the tree rather than uprooted. From what I can tell, they had been burnt and mostly killed in a fire before, and then when the strong winds came last fall, they snapped.
Had a piece of pie at the Reds Meadows general store cafe and then headed on. Saw a couple Americorps trail crews working on cleaning up the trees on the trail from the big winds. Sadly, they don’t use any chainsaws so the work is much slower and painstaking than it could be.
We are taking the alternate root of the John Muir Trail for 14 miles, and the blow downs have not been cleaned up too much here. We got lost trying go around some trees that had been toppled over onto the trail. The trail just kind of vanished, and in the middle if the ling stretch where it was covered, the trail took a 90 degree turn. Eventually we found it.
Tonight we are up high on a ridge with a great view. Should be beautiful with the sunrise tomorrow. It is very windy and cold. We were all in our tents by 7. I have a bunch of rocks on my tent stakes to hold them, as the wind tries to yank them out of the sandy soil.
Daily Distance: 16
Trip Distance: 866.4
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