Day 79

Kennedy meadows north to campsite - 17.2 miles

Total - 1035.3

I was very happy to get out of Kennedy meadows north omg. Very cute place but zeros just suck the life out of me where it feels like I am a shell of myself. I just rot which I like but also it doesn’t do me any good. You could clearly also see that in my last posts. Didn’t even want to write but didn’t want to get behind. Ben has been sleeping on the floor of our dorm room and every night he asks for the other two roommates permission to do it and everyone has been super kind about it. The generator always wakes us up around 4 and eventually I fully awake around 6ish. Our shuttle was at 9:30 so we took our time getting ready. I got a muffin and one last Arizona tea which is always delicious before finishing up packing and then rotting some more lol. we all piled into the shuttle around 9:30 with the sweetest dog that made Marc move from my side to the front to sit with it. The driver told us all about the canyon we drove up to get back to trail which was super interesting. Apparently a guy died and is buried right at the turn where just so happens the car crash was at two days prior. Creepppppyyyyyy. He also talked about the timber industry and donner pass and all the history there. I was kinda tuning in and out as Klara and I were having an intellectual conversation on how Marc is cheating on his girlfriend with the dog. So many kisses were exchanged. We also took notes cause clearly the girl dog got game. Step 1: sit on a guys lap, step 2 lick their face and step 3 sniff their crotch. Bing bang bosh - Pretty simple. Learning a lot of new British terms that I will be incorporating into my everyday life. We got to the trailhead and started on a climb which was the biggest climb of the day. It felt like we were officially saying bye to the sierras which technically we are based on the permit but the snowy capped peaks slowly disappeared into the distant as we take on a new part of california. The climb wasn’t too bad but it was steep in some parts causing my calves to cramp up, slowly me down. We exchanged Rocky steps back to dusty sanding smooth trail. Well occasionally it was more rocky and snowy on top of the pass today but nothing too bad. It was hot tho. I haven’t sweated this much is so so so so long. I was dripping and not in the good way. I know my face was beet red. UGH. Marc and I had lunch together and the vibes were in the dump. Both of us were just tired. Tomorrow we will be fine but after a double zero, you always kinda feel it hard the next time you are on trail. We then started the up and down climbs of the day. Also very steep in some parts which just sucked the life out of me and caused my legs to feel so so so heavy. Not a great feeling. We plugged away at it though until we finally reached my planned campground only to find it to truly be only two spots. Normally when a campsite on FarOut says 2-3, you can fit 5+ but this time it wasn’t lying. So we pushed on 0.4 more and let the others know the plan. I also lost my pee rag for the second time in like 5 days. First time Ben found it and grabbed it and this time gourmet found it and grabbed it. Very thankful for their sacrifice. Ben had it worse tho bc I washed it in Kennedy meadows north and he found it right before then while gourmet got it clean. Got to camp and immediately set up and did some chores like usual. Cooked my marinara pasta for dinner which was pretty good and I didn’t fuck up the water this time. Also the smoked maple pouch salmon was so fucking good. I highly recommend. So much flavor. Sweet but also Smokey. Ooooolalala. Mosquitos weren’t bad today but once it started to get a lil colder they came out in swarms but again not as bad as before Kennedy meadows. I also drank 4 liters today and my pee was still so yellow. UGH! So I chugged an electrolyte liter with dinner to hopefully get some goddamn water in me. Tomorrow, Floris is hiking SOBO and we planned to camp at the same site as him and his friend. Caleb also is getting back on trail and his plan is the juice 30+ miles to catch up but I think he should just shoot for the day after especially since he probably is getting a late start. We will see. But tomorrow is supposed to be easy and then we do two big push days to get to South Lake Tahoe for the third and Fourth of July. Super excited about it!