Day 45

Today we slept in until 4:30 since we only needed to make it over Kearsarge pass less than ten miles away. We flew over the end of the snowbound forest we struggled through yesterday and began slowly climbing switchbacks towards Bullfrog Lake.

The walk around the lake was super pretty and I was feeling quite strong, so with the trail 90% snow-covered I was just navigating towards the pass in the distance by the path of least resistance.

With most of the group at least 20 minutes behind me, I spent only enough time at the top of the pass to eat a candy bar, pull out my ice axe, and switch from Talking Heads to Mazzy Star. The east-facing descent to the trailhead was five miles and, at least from the pass at 8 am, looked like five miles of slushy snow.

Fortunately the exposed section on the left hand side of the first photo was firm enough to avoid serious postponing, but everything below was a slip and slide down. Without much trail or even bootpack, I navigated straight down the fall line, doing lots of down climbing and taking two glossaries in order to get down the the switchbacks where I anticipated a more well-defined path. My expectations were met, and soon Raodrunner, Giuseppe, and AO caught up with me for the tedious pothole descent to the trailhead. On the way, we passed a few beautiful alpine lakes, the least frozen I’ve seen thus far.

When we made it to the trailhead around 9:30, we were greeted by at least ten other through hikers, all of whom were struggling to find a ride down into Independence, a tiny town with a bus at noon into Bishop. There was one old fart, Mark, shuttling people into town for ten bucks a head—he was making a killing. We were way at the back of the queue, so we had to wait over two hours to ride with him. To help us make the bus, Mark drove like a formula one driver down the fifteen mile mountain road which curved and switchbacked through the foothills. He only dropped below 60 for blind curves and hairpin turns, which, using both lanes the entire way down, managed to scare the shit out of all five of his passengers. He dropped me off a sweaty mess at the bus stop, sweaty both from the drive and from the fact that it was in the high 80s down in the Eastern Sierra valley, a temperature range I haven’t experienced in over a week. No one managed to get a hitch into Bishop, so we all waited together for the bus. Apparently all we missed out on was some gas station Mexican food. The bus ride was long and pretty, and when he got to town it was madness.

The hostel was full up, so I had to shell out for a room at the El Rancho Motel. The rest of the day was spent, as expected, eating and hanging out. Bishop was absolutely buzzing because it was the opening day of Mule Days, a 4 day celebration of the Mule. Beer Run grilled tacos for us and we stayed up late around the fire shooting the shit and rolling the die. I got away easily, only gaining a slit in my eyebrow. Others were not so lucky.

We’ll stay the night in Bishop and, since I didn’t do any tasks, I will probably have a zero day tomorrow. Hopefully this means I can partake in some Mule Days festivities.