Day 49 – Wednesday, July 12

Bishop, Calif. Kearsarge Pass trail to PCT Mile 789.1
Day Total: 7.5 Miles (none on the PCT)

We walked to the grocery store this morning and bought a lot of food, eight days worth. That's the most we've carried at once and it wasn't light. I got a lot hungrier during the last section, maybe because it's finally not super hot, so we ended up buying a little extra.

I was kind of dreading going back to the trail today, knowing that we had a huge climb over Keararge Pass just got get back to the PCT. That's the same trail that we took into town two days ago and it felt long on the way down. We ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant with Caboose and Papa Bear and planned to head back to the trail together in the afternoon.

We ended up getting a ride back to the trail (over an hour!) from a guy who hiked the PCT in 2015, who coincidentally lives in Davidson, N.C., where Stephen went to college. His trail name is Traveler. He is on a cross-country road trip and doing some "trail angel-ing" along the way.

We said our thank yous to Traveler and started up toward Kearsarge Pass, some 2,000 feet of elevation gain over five miles. I was amazed at how much snow had melted in the two days since we'd hiked down. I found it encouraging for the melting on other high passes to come.

We were lumbering with our heavy packs up and up, and then dark clouds rolled in. We hustled to get over the pass as the weather looked worse and worse, and just as we got back into trees on the PCT side of the pass, the skies opened.

Rain, lightning and thunder richocheting off the mountains. It was intense. Fortunately, Stephen was quick-thinking and strung up our ground tarp as a bit of a shelter and we were able to stay a little dry.

More than an hour after it started, the lightning lessened and we hiked another mile or so back to the PCT. We set up the tent in record time so that we could take off our wet clothes and get into cozy long underwear and sleeping bags.