September 2
Yesterday, as I mentioned on the videos, the wind was blowing really hard. It continued during the night. I was wondering if a storm front was possibly blowing in. 3:30 AM it started to rain it rained off and on 30 minutes at a time for the next few hours. I woke up at six and started packing up. As I was packing up the rain started again. I crawled back in my sleeping bag and gave it 15 minutes and it seemed to lessen. I got up finished packing everything Put on my lightweight wind coat and headed out to the trail. Immediately it started to rain again! I stopped and put on my rain gear; unfortunately, with the rain gear on I cannot access my phone in my pocket for pictures. I should’ve taken a picture first. I looked like a giant blue Smurf. I headed up the trail a quarter mile slight uphill about the only uphill for today and started to overheat. Rain stopped again, and the sky looked like it was possibly clearing in the direction I was headed I’m taking a chance I took off the rain gear. as I was shoving the rain gear back in my pocket of the backpack I was bent over. I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. Not good. I hope this goes away soon. Even with the rain delay I was on the trail at 7 AM, and I am headed towards Reds Meadow and Mammoth Lakes.
As I was heading down the trail off to my left, I could see clouds lifting out of the valley and then there was a side trail leading to a cliff edge. It had a great deal on it. I headed over there take some pictures and a video.
As I come down off the mountain I’m in a fire burn scar area less than a mile from red Meadow. This blue elder plant is huge. It’s about 8 feet in circumference and height and has these large bushy yellow flowers.
I arrived at Reds Meadow. Now that I had cell service, I started looking for a place to stay tonight, not realizing it was a holiday weekend! There was not a single hotel room available in Mammoth Lakes. Tonight I will have to stay in my tent, so I got on a shuttle bus down to Mammoth to shop for the next six days of food, and grab lunch. I had a burrito from a local Mexican restaurant.
On the bus ride back to Red’s Meadow Metto I was visiting with a hiker I had briefly met going southbound earlier in the month. Her name is tree jumper. We set up our tents and then went down to the general store and restaurant I had two dinners, a double cheeseburger, and a tuna melt with an extra hamburger patty.
During dinner, I did my laundry and then took a shower, brought everything back up to my tent and work on sorting out my meals for the next six days. There is an amazing sunset, although some trees are in the way.
Today’s PCT miles hiked 10.9
Total PCT Miles hiked to date 2209.4
PCT mile marker 906.7
(Returned to complete 303.4 flipped over)
Miles left:
Kearsarge - Echo 185.6
Snoqualmie-Terminus 259.5
Total 445.1
