PCT 53 – Kennedy Meadows North

Daily Miles: 15
Total Miles: 1017

The journal continues….

The climb was a nice switchback, which had parts of the trail covered in snow.  It was slow-going, but a nice climb.

We took a break partway up to stretch, and could see MountainMan and Gazelle coming up the mountain. We were excited because we hadn’t seen them in three days.  We called out to them and waved.  Once we got to the top of the climb, we waited for them to catch up.  It was nice to take a long break with them and to hear how the past few days had been for them.

We hiked the rest of the day with them.  The scenery was really beautiful, with open views of desolate mountains with patches of snow.  The trail was covered with snow in some stretches, and we even got some nice glissades.  One glissade near the end of the hike was really long and fun.  It was just rather sketchy getting to the top where we sat on our pads and slid down.  We later heard that both DreamCatcher and XC fell in that spot, but luckily they were both fine.

Once we got down to the road, we headed to the trailhead, where we had heard there was some trail magic.  In fact, there were two Trail Angels there, and Beardoh remembered both of them from his hike in 2012.  One had provided trail magic at the same spot in 2012, and the other had helped out at a hiker hostel in Agua Dulce back in 2012.  It is interesting to see how committed some people are to helping out hikers.  In any case, we got sodas, cookies (with whipped cream and a cherry on top), fruit, chips and hot dogs.  It was a great way to finish up the hiking day.

Things got even better as we got a hitch just as we started walking down the road.  The guy’s car was totally packed, but we still managed to fit in.  MountainMan and Gazelle were laying on top of a bunch of stuff on the back of the car while SweetPea was on Beardoh’s lap in the front seat.  Not the most comfortable ride, but we were really grateful for the ride.  

We got dropped off at Kennedy Meadows Resort where we had a resupply waiting.  The rest of our group, and many other hikers were already at the resort when we got there.  We were most excited to be able to send our bear canisters back  to their owners.  We are glad to now be past the area which requires the canisters since they are several pounds extra to carry.

We went to the restaurant for dinner with Gazelle, MountainMan, Proton and DreamCatcher.  We had the Thanksgiving dinner, which was so much food.  Of course, we all over ate and were ready to fall asleep right after dinner…truly a recreation of Thanksgiving.

We decided to just camp in the woods outside of the resort since the bunkhouse was already full.  We managed to find a nice spot and will head back to the trail in the morning.