May 13

369-372

This cute little mountain town has become a vortex for us.  A planet of the apes marathon is showing on TV in our hotel room, and we wait until the last possible second to check out while watching screeching apes do battle with men in a collapsing world. I sympathize with the apes. Sometimes I feel like an ape when I am wearing my sweat stained shirt and lugging around my filthy gear in a very wealthy mountain town, surrounded by all the clean smelling and beautiful locals.    

We eat at a local diner and meet a few other hikers in a table next to us- Alivia from New York and Whitney from Seattle.  We share hiking stories and they see our small packs and ask us to do a “gear shakedown.” on them.   A “gear shakedown” is when you ask another hiker, usually one with a lighter weight pack, to go through your gear and make suggestions on how to lighten the load.  We are able to cut 2 lbs of gear from Alivia and a few ounces from Whitney. This feels like a huge success.  

We buy our groceries for the next stretch and begrudgingly leave the comfort of town to head back to trail.  We pack a bag of potato chips out of every town. I consider potato chips somewhat of a health food when hiking through the desert. They are loaded with more sodium and potassium than any electrolytes replacement that money can buy. To fit in our very small packs, we have to strap them to the top.

Our next big hurdle is Mt. Baden-Powell- a 9,500 foot mountain and a 10 mile icy ridge walk that is stubbornly holding onto its winter snow.  The trail reports say that micro spikes are a must to avoid high consequences falls, but we have sent ours ahead to mile 700- at the start of the Sierra. 

Many hikers are taking an alternate route around the mountain on an abandoned highway that has been closed due to mudslides in a previous year.

We camp a few miles from the base of the mountain so we can make our assessment in the morning.