July 3, 2017 - The Long Wait
The long wait to get back on the trail is almost over. I hope to be back in Ashland, Oregon on July 6 and hit the trail running. In the meantime Betsy and I have been entertaining several thru-hikers at the family cabin near Bridgeport, California. On Saturday, June 24, while in town to pick up mail and a sweet snack Betsy noticed a hiker working on his phone at a window seat in the awesome Bridgeport Bakery. We were almost to our vehicle when she mentioned him to her classically unobservant husband (me) so I quickly turned around to investigate. Kenny Mackinnon from Scotland had just exited the PCT snowmeggadon in Yosemite via an eight mile walk down the closed road from Tuolumne Meadows to the east gate at Tioga Pass. Kind people picked up the hitchhiker and delivered him to Bridgeport where he was to pick up his new iPhone after the old one took an unexpected, but not wholly unanticipated, dip in the Tuolumne River. Since most hikers use their phones for primary navigation with paper maps for backup it was pretty important that Kenny had a new one. He was greeted outside the post office late Friday afternoon by a grinning UPS driver who immediately said, "Hello. You must Mr. Mackinnon," as he handed over the new iPhone 7 without even asking for ID. I love these small towns where it seems everyone knows and trusts most everyone! Of course it's hard to miss a thru-hiker as they pretty much dress the part.
What does a thru-hiker look like? Males have scraggly beards while females have hair held back by scarves or scrunchies. Both have sunburned faces. In warm weather they wear dirty stained t-shirts that once might have been bright colors. In cold weather it's a dirty puffy jacket which seems to envelop their upper body and remind one of the Michelin Tire mascot or Pillsbury DoughBoy. All have crushed running/hiking shoes, not boots, that look about to fall apart. And of course, everyone is carrying their entire existence in their prized possession, an ultralight backpack, accompanied by crushed plastic drinking water bottles and, this year especially, an ice axe. Every thru-hiker relishes the Hiker-Trash moniker and immediately responds to those that call out, "Hey, hiker trash! Want a ..." ride, hamburger, beer, whatever! After days in the backcountry every hiker is thrilled at the offer of trail magic.
So Kenny was ecstatic at the offer of a place to stay with us at the lake cabin for a couple of days followed by a ride to South Lake Tahoe on Monday where he would pick up a package at the post office and resume his journey on the PCT. We had a couple of great days sharing good food and listening to his adventures. He was very thankful that he had paired up with two other hikers, including a very experienced winter hiking Swede, for the 250 mile journey across mostly snow and through swollen rivers from Kennedy Meadows South to Tuolumne Meadows. Several times he mentioned his good luck at having fallen in with the Swede, as he was bigger and stronger and helped to pull the other two through some incredibly tough spots. Kenny woke up at 4:00 am to join his companions in donning frozen boots and shoes so they could take advantage of the hard snow before the sun softened it and made frequent postholing a reality.
For the uninitiated, postholing is when one walks along a seemingly solid snow surface only to have it give way causing the hiker to sink one leg all the way to his crotch while the other leg is sprawled on the solid snow pack. Getting up from a post hole requires enormous effort and quickly tires hikers making for slow progress through what would otherwise be challenging terrain.
Many hikers have been skipping the Sierra for less snow covered areas past Lake Tahoe. Later in the season they'll backtrack and finish the trail.
Peeler Lake, above the cabin on the Yosemite border at 9600 feet. 4-6 feet of ice on June 23rd. Up to 20 feet of snow on the last two miles of the trail as I approached from the east.
A couple of days after dropping Kenny off Betsy and I stopped by Sonora Pass to see if anyone needed a ride into Bridgeport when lo and behold, Hobo Joe was at the Pass performing trail magic! After a big hug and some small talk we invited Joe and his four new hiking friends to the cabin for a couple of days. If you've been following me on Facebook you may have seen my post from Rhinos Bar in Bridgeport featuring Hobo Joe, Yard Sale, Crusher, Fibs, and Metric along with the cute Betsy Bunting. After a late lunch and some shopping they all came out to the cabin for a couple of days to hang out and wait for, you guessed it, a phone to arrive. Yard Sale's phone also took an unexpected dip in a river. While here, the kids got the full Bridgeport experience - Kens Sporting Goods, the library WiFi, the General Store, and, of course, Twin Lakes.
Hobo Joe and thru hikers.
Doug entertaining the hiking crowd.
Holly and Doug. Trail magic!
Cabin neighbors, Holly and Doug, also treated them to a fresh trout dinner in return for their awesome stories of their death defying trek through Snowmeggadon. We also took a trip to Mammoth so they could re supply and buy gear that was either broken or completely destroyed. Yard Sale had a shirt so full of holes that Betsy lent her a shirt to help keep her from being sunburned. In Mammoth the old shirt went in the trash. I remember doing the same thing last year!
Trail Names, like Yard Sale, intrigue me, so I asked how each had acquired their names. Metric was from Denmark, so his name was easy to figure out. Crusher got his name from crushing rock climbing routes in his native Texas. Fibs, a theoretical Math doctoral candidate at MIT, got his name from the Fibonacci Sequence. After some hikers passed by Yard Sale as she laid out all of her gear to dry on top of her tent footprint and made the remark, "Looks like you're having a yard sale," the name stuck. Finally, while in high school, Joe and a friend used to skip class all the time and would often be seen hanging out in low life neighborhoods carrying their stash (school books not included) like they were homeless. The kids started asking where the Hobo was today, hence the name Hobo Joe.
Hobo Joe provided trail magic last year as he also walked the trail from Mexico to Canada. His friends would show up periodically along the trail with food, beer, and whatever a hiker might want to hold a Hobofest! Of course Joe was the inspiration. This year Joe isn't hiking,
at least not the whole thing, but he's had one Hobofest at VVR, and is performing trail magic as he moves on to the next Hobofest location.
Waiting for the post office to open. Discussing options.
Joe and the kids left today to return to the trail. Betsy and I took the afternoon to tool around in the desert northeast of the cabin for some geocaching and off-roading. Great fun being with the kids and being together with Betsy for some easy downtime.
