Me 2007-06-18 Kearsarge Lakes (again)
June 18th, 2007
The sun was on my sleeping bag before I got up. That’s a good sign to me. Still I was up and moving at 7am, Lucky Joe found us at the store an hour later as he said good-bye to his girlfriend, then Dad drove us back to the trail above Independence. We stopped in Mammoth to resupply and found Ultra Brite, last seen shooting out of Deep Creek, and helped move her around town. Some burgers in Bishop and that was it, we went to the trail.
I fare-welled Dad from the car park. I’ve been pretty lucky to break up my long walk with such a good family visit. The last few days have been much like the times we had when we came here about 6 years ago, except without all the computers. Good times.
Getting up and over Kearsarge seemed impossible when we started, laden down with food. But after a while I realised through all the huffing and puffing I was really glad to be back on the mission. I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet Rolling Thunder and goBig, two guys from last year here to resupply Scout and Frodo, but I just had to get back on trail. If you two read this and ever pass through Auckland you should look me up and come tell me what the Sierras were like with snow.
We’re down at Kearsarge Lakes now, not far from last week’s bear adventure. But with a big USFS bear box protecting our food we should sleep well. Plus it’s “warm” enough to cowboy camp and I love that.
At about 10:22pm someone shone their headlamp in my face, I woke as they left the camping area and said sorry. No idea who it was or where they went but I was glad for the wake up. The stars were bright, the Milky Way was visible and just a minute or two later the brightest shooting star I have ever seen streaked across the sky to the north. I saw it break into bits and I’m sure I heard a “vrooosh”, but that may have been the wind.
More photos of this day’s journey can be found at Kearsarge Pass
Distance today: 0 miles. Total distance: 788.5 miles