Day 57 – Thursday, July 20

PCT Mile 893.6 Purple Lake to PCT Mile 903.9 Mammoth Lakes 
Day Total: 10.3 PCT Miles (Plus 3.5 Mammoth Pass Trail)

We were the last ones to get moving this morning, as everyone else was up early to get into town.

We had a brief climb up away from Purple Lake before the trail took us down toward Mammoth Lakes.

Normally, hikers can catch a bus from Reds Meadow ,which is right on the PCT at mile 906, into the town of Mammoth Lakes, but the road the bus travels on isn't open yet because of snow damage from the winter. Instead we left from PCT mile 903 and took a 3.5 mile side trail over Mammoth Pass to a busy trailhead at Horseshoe Lake. (Note: We found out later that the Reds Meadow shuttle opened the next day. Of course it did.) From the trailhead, we took a free trolley to the village of Mammoth Lakes.

We got into town and found Papa Bear sitting at an outside table of a Mexican restaurant and we joined him for nachos and tacos. It felt nice to be in town. This ended the longest town-less stretch we've had so far.

It was about 115 miles from Bishop to Mammoth Lakes, but took us many days because the trail was so challenging with snow and creeks.

After some tasty Mexican food, we walked to to the brewery where we met up with Caboose,  Trailblazer, and another hiker named Plan A (because he doesn't have a plan b) who we had met in Julian on our third day.

We sat at an outside picnic table and enjoyed some good beer and the simple pleasure of not walking. The friendly waitress recognized we were hungry hikers and eventually (after some joking that we would eat anything) started bringing us leftover food from other people. Over the course of several hours, she brought is six or seven plates of nachos, some pizza, and a basket of fries that other restaurant guests hadn't finished.

We stayed in an AirBnB in downtown Mammoth with this group of fun hikers and celebrated getting through this tough section.