06.04.2018 – Day 50
Miles : 17.7
Camp: Days Inn (Bishop, CA)
Weather: pretty warm (low 80’s)
Wildlife: deer, dancing birds
People: Mark + Tammy
Resupply day!!
The day we hiked Whitney, we realized we were running low on food, as well as running low on fuel tabs. Luckily that night Violet shared some of her liquid fuel with us, and Sarge (Topp) shared his extra food–it helped what we had left stretch to today.
As with all days when we head to town, we had burgers on the brain, which is the best motivator.
We put on wet shoes in the morning and didn’t even care.
Now, to resupply in the Sierra Nevada mountains is a little trickier than any place in the past 700 miles of the PCT. Throughout southern California, resupply towns were either right off the trail, or a few miles away but a really easy hitchhike from the trail.
In the Sierras, the PCT has a stretch of some 170-odd miles where it doesn’t cross a single road. So to resupply, you have to jump on a connecting trail and head to the trailhead to try and find a ride into a town.
The most popular connection trails are Whitney Portal (which branches off 2 miles short of the summit to Mt Whitney and continues another 8 miles to a trailhead where hikers try and hitch to Lone Pine) and Kearsarge Pass trail (which is a 9 mile one-way hiking/backpacking trail where you can try to get a hitch in to the towns of Independence or Bishop).
We hiked the 7 miles to the Kearsarge Pass connector trail, and then the 9 miles down to the parking lot without taking many breaks. We saw deer on the way out, and remarked several times about how beautiful and alive the Sierras are.
We did play music on our Bluetooth speaker for the climb, too–needed just a little extra oomph.
Kearsarge Pass Trail coming from the PCT, is 3.5 miles uphill, and 4.5 miles downhill.
On the way down, around 2pm, we saw many hikers coming back up from having resupplied, as well as our first big surge of weekend backpackers, and a few JMT hikers as well. A lot of people seemed tired coming up the hill, and as we reached halfway down the hill we began to realize why. On the way DOWN the trail seemed to last forever, we couldn’t imagine what endless agony it must seem like going UP.
We tucked that thought away as we ambled down, and ran in to some familiar faces: a couple from California named Mark + Tammy — they informed us that they’d camped last night with Sarge (Topp) and that he was wondering about us. He had figured we would have rolled in to camp with them last night and was worried when we didn’t. We had been wondering about him as well, as he expressed a lot of fear about Forester, so it was nice to know he was doing well and on his way to Independence.
When we got down to the parking lot there was an English couple dropping off their daughter at the trailhead to go back on the PCT. They asked if we wanted a ride in to Bishop because they were headed there.
“We’ll, ideally we think we want to end up in Bishop–we’ve heard there’s more food options there. Independence has a taco truck and that’s it apparently? But we also have to go to Independence anyway because we mailed ourselves packages there.”
“I actually stayed in Independence for 3 days, and that’s accurate–there’s only a taco truck. You wanna go to Bishop. We can drive you to the post office in Independence on the way.”
This whole time on the trail, Aaron and I have really good luck getting in to resupply towns (and bad luck getting back to the trailhead afterwards lol!) and the so the streak continued.
During the drive we learned that the mom (whose name escapes me now) had hiked the first 720ish miles with her daughter, and then dad flew in for 2 weeks and the two of them were helping their daughter resupply and then sight seeing in the area before flying home.
The mom: “We’ll, my daughter wanted to do it, before she started university. And when she first told me the idea I said ‘no way, that’s too dangerous.’ She had just had a surgery the previous summer, so I just didn’t think it was smart. So she did more research and said ‘well why don’t you just do the first part with me; that way you can see how safe it is.’ And I think it was a bluff, but I said okay!”
We got our resupply boxes in Independence, then drove the 37 miles to Bishop. We had no idea it was that far away, and worried a bit about being able to get a ride back–but decided to worry about that later.
We checked in to the Days Inn in Bishop.
Then we did our chores (laundry, packing food, planning the next leg of the trip, calling our family) and ate dinner (BBQ. SO good).
Today we’re grateful for how easy it was to get in to Bishop–and for the great conversation we had on the way.
Caitlin & Aaron 