PCT 47 – Red’s Meadow

Daily miles 15
Total miles 907

Great sleep at our lakeside campsite last night.   Very still but not any noticeable condensation.   Someone had come in late and pitched their bivy about 15 feet from Sweetpea’s hammock,  but they were very quiet.

Walked right through the inlet to Virginia Lake right from camp and started out with wet feet.   It was cold,  of course,  but we are used to it by now. Also walked by Rainbow Lake,  which is a lovely little lake and could see that a lot of PCT hikers were camped there.

Most of our walk today was downhill,  with some of it being through some rock hard snow (on the northern facing slopes).   Sweetpea got out her Microspikes and Beardoh (who had left his at the hiker box at VVR – they were getting a few tears in the rubber and didn’t have a ton of life left) finally wished he had his for a couple short sections.

Rat and Ant,  sisters from NH,  caught up to us on a little break.   We have been leap frogging back and forth with them for 800 miles. It was great to see them again,  they are probably the cheeriest people from NH we have ever met.

As we got closer to Red’s Meadow, we walked through the big burn (probably from 92) that then got hammered with a big wind storm in early 2012. Trees were snapped like toothpicks in this area and there was clearly a lot of clearing work that was done here.

Our day finished somewhat early at 2pm when we got to Red’s Meadow.   We had lunch with Proton,  Dream catcher, XC,  Gazelle and Mtn Man.  All of them,  except XC had been planning to go into Mammoth from Red’s Meadow to resupply.   We didn’t need to but decided to go in for at least one day off to give Sweetpea’s hip some rest.  

Through Proton’s work connections (State Farm Ins),  he secured us a condo (every motel room in town is booked for a pro Motocross event)  at a decent price.   The place is pretty nice and we are pleased to be here.

Right now our plan is to have three zeroes to give SweetPea some hip resting time.   We think this will be best for the trip in the long term.   We have both hiked this section between Red’s and Tuolumne Meadows,  so we may just skip ahead to Tuolumne since it is possible with the bus.  Beardoh is unsure if he will jump the 32 miles or hike it with our friends.   He can think about it for a day in Mammoth and then decide.