55 — Red’s Meadow

Mile 890.9–906.6 (15.7 miles)

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Rose: comradery Thorn: realizing I’m technically “zeroing” in Mammoth Bud: town food! Shower, laundry

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Hurdle started his day by somersaulting out of his tent door. I woke up at 5:30 before everyone, including before my alarm…as usual. I denied the time. Then caught up on journaling while waiting for other to wake up.

Magic Beans was cowboying next to me. She woke up first. She told me that she hadn’t gone to sleep with her head net on, had put it on sometime in the night time, and woke up with it on. We quietly entertained ourselves on our phones. Gibb was the next one. He emerged from his tent and immediately and swiftly packed up. Hurdle only woke up and emerged when everyone was packing or packed up.

We ate breakfast together. As I debated which ProBar to eat for breakfast, Hurdle declared, “All of them! Today is ‘Eat everything in your bear canister day!” He was right, tonight would end with town food. Gibb broke up two Clif bars into his chocolate frosting tub and ate it all to finish out the tub. I had a ProBar and a few handfuls of trail mix. Hurdle shared his Folgers instant coffee which we mixed in our water bottles. No rules.

Only 15 miles to the end of the day and town food. (Mostly) all downhill. A solid motivator.

I put on music in my headphones and strided downtrail.

It got warm and humid quickly. Not as bad as the desert, but enough vibrant sun through the sparse forest that I put up my sun umbrella for an hour or so on the afternoon. Power through sparse forest, tight creek valleys, passed glorious mountain silhouettes, and recent burns. No technical, exposed sections. No monitoring the clouds on an approach to the pass. Just quick, soft trail through the forest. Kinda boring tbh. I listened to music and podcasts. I finished my audiobook yesterday.

The last podcast of the day talked about food; we’ve had a moratorium on talking about food (that we frequently break). We’ve all been craving food. To speak of town food while in the backcountry is cruel. But today, we could drool. It’s within walking distance.

I got to Red’s Meadow at around 4:30. There was a horse ranch, café, general store, guest cabins, campground, and hot springs. I immediately bought a cheese burger from the café with fresh fruit as my side. It hit every spot. I would have gotten a strawberry milkshake, but they were $12! I followed te burger up with a tall boy PBR and aneopolitan ice cream sandwich.

After dinner and phone calls to loved ones, we moved to the campground where we had reserved a site. We quickly set up our tents and then moved toward the hot springs where we spent a couple hours chit chatting and enjoying each other’s company before we part ways (for now).

What a glorious trail.

At camp: Gibb, Magic Beans, Hurdle, Big Sky, several other PCTers at the adjacent campsite including Ronnie & Sam from day 2.