May 24 Kennedy Meadows (1 mile off trail) 702 to mile 709.5

Chris woke feeling so much better, weather cleared and we decided to head back to the trail if we could get a ride. Once again like magic, we received a text from A Mountain Lion who said he was headed back to Phoenix to drop off his rental car and start his hike at mile 400. Asked if we wanted a ride back to Kennedy Meadows. Life saver!

We checked out of the hotel and waited for him on the corner. As we were standing there we heard a loud ‘Hey, Spay and Neuter’ (not our trail names, it this hiker heard our story about trying to raise donations for Animal Save (lowcost spay and neuter program). It was Turk (she loves torquoise and was keen on our potential trail names). We visited with her for a few minutes. She also escaped to Lone Pine to wait out the storm and then decided to fly home to Atlanta to see her boys for a few days. We hope we run into her again and can share our new, official trail names with her. We finally received them in Independence. (This is still in dispute - Rick here)

A Mountain Lion arrived about noon and dropped us at KMGS about 2:30. On the ride back he told us he just ‘placed’ his resupply cache about midnight the night before in Tuolumne Meadows. He had to hike in about 8 miles past a locked gate as the park service has not yet opened Tuolumne for the summer season. He said there were lots of people on bikes taking advantage of the car-free and snow-free road and the beautiful, bright light of the full moon. Sounds like a cool idea.

So good to be back on the trail, if only for a few miles. We saw Half Pint and Shark camped by the river - fully recovered from Norovirus, but somewhat concerned about the weight of their fully loaded Bear canister.

Found a nice campsite by a creek a few miles up and met Snowcone. He had a Garmin and informed us that a second storm would arrive by the 30th, so we looked at our mileage and planned to be in Independence on that day.