Day 39; Mon, June 4 2007

(Stud) Our trail angel Sheila (the person that gave us a ride to Ridgecrest, a 2004 PCT thru-hiker) got our day off on a positive start by driving us to Denny's for breakfast. Just as we had at dinner last night, we continued to ask her questions about the high sierra: what gear would be adequate, what to expect at the river fords, if/how they dealt with altitude sickness, bear issues, etc. She patiently answered all our questions. After breakfast she drove us back to the trailhead--a resupply just doesn't get any easier than that. Thanks, Sheila!!!

It was a day of ups and downs, terrain wise. We headed up out of Walker Pass, hiking a trail that rimmed the mountainside and that nearly took us to just below the summit--around 7500 ft, I think. The the trail wound back downhill, in order to pass by a spring. Then we wound back up to another mountain pass, back down to a series of springs--all fingerlits of the same creek. We ended the day ascending to a saddle where there were a number of small tent sites nestled in the trees. The PCT trail maintenance crews use the area as a base camp when they work in the area.

It was a ice day of hiking. Even as we ascended from the desert, there were intermittant pinion pines giving shade to the trail. The number and variety of pines increased at the higher elevations. It got a bit warm, but there was generally a good breeze.

We didn't encounter another hiker until the very end of the day--where we stopped to camp. Here we met Old Corpus--a fellow 60ish from Corpus Cristi, TX. He said he did 1800 miles on the PCT last year--and is back this year to thru-hike the whole thing. "It's addictive", he said.

I had a concern about how I might react if I unexpectedly encountered a snake on one of the narrow rim trails where you have a big vertical drop off to one side. I'm not afraid of snakes, but a sruprise encounter might be different. I got to test that out today when a 2 ft garter snake unexceptedly shot across the trail in front of me. I'm pretty sure I took the Lord's name in vain (sorry, God), but other than that, I get a much more panicked sensation when the trail slips away from underneath my foot on the downhill side. This occurs several times a day.

Other than the garter snake, our only other significant wildlife sighting today was a mule deer that looked a bit malnorished. It jumped off trail to hide behind a bush when it saw us coming.