Mile 664 to 681

After our game of Farkel last night, I was returning to my tent with Vipr and Shades when we came upon a girl puking out the door of her tent. Vipr gave her some electrolyte powder and encouraged her to mix it with water and drink little sips every 3-4 minutes. The girl, who was from Canada, said she would drink it in the morning because she didn’t want to throw it up… Unfortunately, throughout the night the girl continued to puke. It seems she had a case of heat exhaustion, and reminded me of what could have happened to me that same day if I hadn’t taken quick action and had the help of my friends.

In addition to the above noises all night, there was some weird bird or animal making crazy calls and making a lot of sound in the brush after the sun went down. Needless to say, I didn’t get the best sleep last night, but at least I hydrated myself well because I had to pee in the middle of the night. We got our normal 5:30 start and knocked out the 4 miles to the first water source in the cool morning air.

After picking up 4 liters, we started on a 6 mile climb with 2,500 feet of elevation gain over a steady grade. As we curled around dry sandy mountains spotted with pines, the smells of sage and dry wood whafed into my nostrils. I will miss the smells of the desert once we enter the snow clad Sierra.

The mountains continue their change from dusty brown earth to sun bleached rock poking through a layer of sandy soil. Occasionally, we glimps the larger peaks of the Sierra with hats of blinding white snow peaking over ridge lines.  Excitement and trepidation mixed together as we pointed and shouted at each other with each new sighting.

I got to the last water just .2 miles from our campsite, filled up, and carried on. When no one showed up for 90 mintues I walked back down the road. Everyone was curled into little pockets of shade cooking their lunch. I informed everyone that there were picnic tables and copious amounts of shade at the campsite and people slowly trickled in.

In my absence, it appears that a few members of the group wanted to continue hiking on for another 5 miles so they could do 17 miles to Kennedy Meadows instead of the planned 22. Since there were no campsite for the next  12 miles, they hoped to find stealth sites. They seemed to be ignoring the fact that they would be looking for sites in the middle of a climb on the side of a mountain. Not being in a rush to leave a campground with picnic tables, shade, and pit toilets, Bedazzled, Vipr, and I stuck with the plan our group had originally agreed upon days before and stayed.

While we were eating, a man pulled up and started walking around with binoculars. It turns out he is a biologist and doing a point count of birds in the area. He could identify birds by their calls and pointed out a Gray Flycatcher and Mountain Quail to us. He was on the hunt for a rare bird, but unfortunately I can’t remember it’s name.

Bedazzled commented on how it was nice to camp in a smaller group and I have to agree. A group of 7 is pretty large and it can be hard to make decisions with people following the plan when convenient and doing what they want at other times. But as they say, HYOH (hike your own hike). I enjoyed spending the evening with Bedazzled and Vipr.

Wildlife: Gray Flycatcher, Mountain Quail, Stellar’s Jay