July 8-9, 2016 Day 45: 0 Miles I wake up early and drive my in-laws’ car an hour down the mountain to the White Mountain Ranger Station in Bishop. My PCT permit doesn’t cover my wife, so I need to get a new permit so she can hike with me. I sit outside on the sidewalk and wait for the office to open at 7. I am first in line, but before long there are 15 people. The group behind me startesasking questions about the PCT: how long have I been hiking, how many miles a day am I hiking, do I really plan to go all the way to Canada, did I have to quit my job? When we are let in, the ranger tells me I have to come back because they won’t be issuing permits for tomorrow until after 11. It doesn’t make much sense to drive all the way back up to the lodge. I have to resupply at the grocery store and do laundry, and it will take me an hour to drive each way. But there is no cell phone service up at the lodge, so I have no way to reach my in-laws. I cross my fingers and hope they won’t be too mad that I disappeared with their car for so long. In the meantime, I take care of my chores and eat as much food as I can at the local restaurants. I buy a big bag of monkeybread from Schat’s Bakkery to bring back to the lodge. I return to the ranger station at 11 and have no problems getting the permit, then drive back up the mountain. My father-in-law is walking up to the entrance of the lodge; he tells me he was getting ready to call me from the lodge phone (I wish I had thought of contacting the lodge itself, it seems so obvious in hindsight). I apologize profusely, but he isn’t mad, he was just a little worried. He and my mother-in-law drive up to South Lake to explore. I stay behind to sew up a pocket that has developed a hole and to pack food into the bear canisters. My wife Lindsey shows up at 6—I feel a release of tension that I didn't realize I had been storing up all this time—and then we all go back down to Bishop for dinner. Day 46: 13.1 Miles (Bishop Pass trail, PCT Mile 831-832.4) The lodge doesn’t offer breakfast until 8, but my hiker hunger is shouting me awake at 5:30. Luckily, I have a big bag of monkeybread. If you’ve never had monkeybread before, think of a cinnamon roll chopped into pieces and stirred into its icing. Now imagine a gallon-sized loaf of that. I had a couple pieces the day before and nobody else wanted any, so I still have most of the loaf. At 7am, I have finished it. At 8am, the lodge’s enormous breakfast is no match for me. Hiker hunger is real. Lindsey’s parents drop us off at the trailhead a little while later and wish us good luck. Tomorrow they will caravan Lindsey’s car to Yosemite Valley, where we plan to pick it up in a little over a week. Then she will drive me back down to Agua Dulce, where I will finish the section that I had to skip. We start hiking slow and steady. It’s a merciless slope all the way to the top, but Lindsey is in good shape and has no trouble. We reach Dusy Basin and have lunch close to where camped a week ago. We descend into LaConte Canyon and rejoin the PCT. A hiker is headed southbound with a stoner grin on his face and awestruck by the trees. “How’s it going?” I ask. “Amaaaazing,” he says. “Getting better all the time.” Lindsey and I find a campsite near the Backcountry Ranger’s station. I am unpacking the tent and Lindsey is taking her bear canister out when I look up and see a large black bear a hundred feet away. It is one of the biggest black bears I’ve ever seen. It is looking around for food (don’t look over here!) and pauses every few steps as it moves slowly southbound. Lindsey isn’t comfortable eating dinner and camping here, and if I’m honest, neither am I. We decide to press on a little further We start the climb up toward Muir Pass and find a windy overlook where we make Ramen—we need to get rid of the bulky stuff first so there is room for everything in our bear canisters. Lindsey is a little jumpy and keeps looking over her shoulder every time there’s a noise. We finish dinner and hike another half mile to a wooded campsite.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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