After 700 gruelling miles of hot waterless SoCal we finally made it to Kennedy Meadows, the official start of the Sierras for the PCT. I remember seeing the movie 'Wild' and feeling disappointed that my first experience of Kennedy Meadows was through a movie. Well rest easy, the REAL Kennedy Meadows is nothing like in the movie. Far from the rustic and quaint little shop overlooking the meadows you walk over on your approach, the real Kennedy Meadows has to be experienced to be believed. So I don't taint anyone else's virginal experience I will leave it at that! Oh and some pictures of course!
While my anticipation of Kennedy Meadows was rooted in the fear I'd never make it this far, reaching the 700 milestone was fairly meh... We had been smashing through the miles and to me Kennedy Meadows was the milestone. I was tired and wanted a beer in my hand!
We were welcomed into Kennedy Meadows with the hoots, whistles, clapping and cheers from all the hikers already there... A welcoming everyone would join in on whenever a fresh hiker strolled (or stumbled) up the road to the store.
Lightning. Being as ambiguous as always.
Lightning got a warm welcome from Jim.
Bradley giving foot massages and entertaining Bailey. Holding court you might say.
The line up for food. This isn't trip advisor but I have to mention... While the staff were super friendly and they had a pretty good (pre 1989) docket and name system; the toilets were something else. There is no eloquent way to put this. People were telling horror stories of having to take a stick in with them to beat down the mound... I could go on but you get the picture.
He plays a mouth harp.
Incessantly.
Wabi Sabi (or Nude Dude or Naked Dancer)*
*I will get around to my take on trail names. Probably around the time I get a USA flag bandana...
We saw Carolyn (Happy Feet) again. She was happy to see us! :-)
Me with Sarah(?) @vanderphilly on instagram!
The group shot.
Ben and Sally (more bloody aussies!).
Stephan. A possible Nobel Prize candidiate.
Right now I am tethered to the wall in my motel room in Lone Pine. Going through my camera, downloading then uploading and blah blah blah. Anyway the next bit is out of sequence. While Lone Pine has that Hollywood set feel to it, Lake Isabella was... Well Jim put it most succinctly with 'Lake Isabella is a resort town, much in the same way Chernobyl is a power generating town...' To be fair we had a great time in Lake Isabella and here are the photos to prove it!
Jim and Wolf, fresh off the trail and eager for a ride.
It wasn't as easy a we'd thought. Jim needed a break.
And he was happy to get somewhere with a beer in hand!
Somewhere just wasn't quite really anywhere you'd take your Mum.
Lonnie the hotelier. The Isabella Motel was, in some ways, the polar opposite to Fawlty Towers.
Poolside with Beth, Jamieson and Nathaniel (Clark Kent).
Hiker boxes can be fruitful in the oddest ways!
Phil and Clare again. Always great to catch up to them!
Mariel captivating us with a story. I can't remember what it was about but invariably talk turns to poop pretty quickly on the trail.
Tom and Lindsay chilling. Tom had a boulder roll onto his heel but he is still hiking.
Albert! Outside! Yeah buddy over here the dog laws are so relaxed you could be flipping burger
s this summer!
Distance. I would call her a drifter if I hadn't talked to her. She had an old external frame Gregory with a bedroll strapped to the bottom, a guitar and a sharp look about her. Upon seeing me her first comment was "you could get kilt in some countries wearing that!" Referring to my apparel of course. She then went on to show us the book she'd written with Lone Wolf an Indian elder who taught her how to forrage and live off the land. I didn't buy her book but I kept her card.
Wolf in his natural habitat.
Nice trails... For the desert!
Russel from Brussels. We call him Muscles but he doesn't even know who Jean Claude VanDamme is! What is the world coming to and why is he sitting in the trail!?
The South Fork Kern River. Hikers love water.
I put this in to remind me to tell you about all the holes in the ground! All through SoCal there were holes of varying sizes everywhere. Ones bigger than a fifty cent piece you have to assume there is something cute and furry in there, like a gopher. But that only accounts for some of the holes! There are many, many more holes of varying size. Cowboy camping every night has you imagining Jiminy Cricket and Tinkerbell. Surely they live in there right!? One night I laid out my groundsheet and went to cook dinner. When I came back my groundsheet was buzzing from all the bugs underneath. I worked out that a lot of the smaller holes are for beetles that must come out in the cool of the evening. They only stay out a few hours and then return to their burrows. That discovery was alarming as Jim pointed to a hole and said 'is that a tarantula?!
' Of course as soon as I looked all I could see was this massive tarantula coming out of the hole. 'Oh my god it's just caught a bug and is eating it!' Jim exclaimed. It was true. A hapless bug flew straight into its deadly embrace. Then another on... And another. And the illusion was gone. It was the bugs tumbling over each other burrowing into the ground after dinner.
Ok. And as promised. A photo of me in my kilt. Thanks Wolf!
And then I'm off to the bar for a beer. Up early tomorrow to start the ascent to Mt Whitney. At 14,500ft it will be a task.
Rxxx
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