Forrester Pass

Before we started this adventure, my biggest fear about the trip was going over Forrester Pass. It's the highest pass we go over and it's only 1500 feet shorter than Mt. Whitney; which we climbed just yesterday. I saw this National Geographic special on the PCT that showed an aerial view of a girl struggling with every step, going straight up a wall of snow and ice. The view from the helicopter captures the sharp edge of the pass and you get vertigo just watching the view in the background blur as the shot pans. As the journey began and most hesitations laid to rest, I still had that image of Forrester on my mind. I watched the snow reports. Not sure if the rumors of a low snow year would turn out to be true. It wasn't until last week that we had confirmation that there was almost no snow on Forrester Pass. Today, we went up and over the pass and it was, by far, the best part of this entire trip so far. In fact, from the rocky switchbacks at the top, far ahead of us, Jacob yelled, "This beats Whitney for me!" It was funny because we had this dreaded image in our minds and in reality most of the day was spent laughing at Marmot antics so hard our stomachs hurt. Brett said, "No one ever mentioned that when they were talking about how hard Forrester was." We couldn't tell which one was Forrester Pass until right when we were crossing through it, which was kind of magical. At one point, we were pretty tired and looked straight up and saw an endless rock wall. Then, just as we were thinking we had a looooong way to go, we were there. The Sierras have been an entirely different experience than the rest of the trail and they definately start a brand new chapter in this story, but I think that climbing Forrester today brought the trail to life in a whole new way for all three of us. There is a definate reason John Muir and the rest fought to preserve this place. It's really, truly incredible and inspiring. It's like Disneyland for outdoors people. I've probably taken more pictures today than in the last two weeks. Tomorrow we're headed out over Kearsarge Pass to go to the town of Bishop. We'll eat, rest up, see a movie, sleep in real beds. And then, we can't wait to see what the rest of the Sierras have in store for us.

Forrester Pass

I spy...

The funniest Marmot we've ever met

The other side of Forrester Pass

Mt. Whitney

We're in the Sierras!

And it is absolutely breathtaking! In more ways than one, but we're having a great time. We're climbing Mt. Whitney in a couple of days. Woohoo!

Onward to the Sierras

Sitting here at a german bakery in Tehachapi. We made it to town last night after two days in the Mojave. When we left the HikerTown Hostel on Monday, we definately didn't expect to be huddling for warmth on our journey through the desert. The temps went from 95 to 45 with a sudden cold windstorm. Travelling through the desert was like an extreme sport, hopping up on burms and pushing with all of our strength through wind gusts. Tehachapi has been a great town stop. Every single person here has been so friendly. We had read in the guidebook that it was spread out and hard to get around so we weren't sure how it would turn out. When we got out of the mountains and to te road, chilled to the bone and windswept, we weren't looking forward to hitch hiking on a quiet highway. We stuck our thumbs out, smiled, and the first car picked us up. He said that his church had told the congregation about all of us and that we would be needing rides into town! We dropped our stuff at a motel and rushed out into the cold to find a restaurant that was still open. We were coming up empty when we came to The Village Grille that was closing up. They let us in anyway and stayed open long enough for us to enjoy real food--burgers and fries. This morning, when we were walking out to run our errands, a woman, Joy, and her two kids stopped at the corner to offer us a ride to wherever we needed to go. She left her number, insisting that we call her when we were ready to leave the store. After we finished our grocery shopping, we were standing outside of the store, chatting with some locals and getting ready to walk the miles to the edge of town. A man who worked at Albertson's, Frank, came up to join the conversation, he was a backpacker himself and knew all about the trail. He was just getting off shift and offered us a ride. He even stopped to pick up another fellow hiker on the way. In the bakery, we met Daniel, who fills a water cache on one of the dryer stretches of the trail. When he found out when we had gone through there, he was truly bummed that we had gotten there right before he had delivered a basket of green apples to the cache. Most of our posts are becoming about all of the trail magic we have received. It never ceases to surprise and humble us.

This is the last major desert section and then we are in the sierras. I can hardly believe that it's happening. Graduating to a new chapter of the trip. And no more desert! For a while, at least. Hesitations about this section from before we set out on this trip are long gone now. We can totally do this!

HikerTown

The recent days have been like a tour of trail angel stops and HikerTown Hostel is the last one until the Sierras. Our plan was to spend a little bit of time at the hostel during the heat of the day and night-hike through the Mojave Desert section to Tehachapi. We could hardly believe it when we checked the weather and it was expected to go from 95+ to 75. It was a pretty huge relief to know that we could relax, hang out with hikers, and not have to come up with some elaborate sleep schedule to work around the heat. HikerTown had a lot more to offer than I had imagined and we've had a really nice time here. The nearby market was even picking up hikers. We had fresh deli sandwiches and were able to replenish the snacks we find ourselves burning through; faster and faster as our "hiker hunger" grows. Tomorrow, we head out through the dreaded Mojave, feeling blessed with good timing.

Casa de Luna-tics, mile 480

The 24 miles from The Saufley's to The Anderson's are infamous. There is a challenge, taken from a similar 24 mile stretch on the Appalachian Trail, where you have to carry 24 beers, 24 miles, 24 hours. You can drink them all or pass some off to hikers you see along the path. We heard stories of a few people taking on the challenge during the time we were making the journey, passing out under trees, et cetera. We didn't do the challenge, but we definately passed out under a few bushes. It was brutally hot and it seemed like the whole day was spent going from bush to bush, shade to shade, nap to nap. We were in the middle of one such nap, planning on going just a bit further and finishing the trek to The Anderson's in the morning, when who should come down the trail but Ms. Teri Anderson herself. We hadn't heard much about what Casa de Luna was like, but the woman before us had a huge presence and a pink mohawk. We jumped up, half asleep, offering to help carry the water jugs she was resupplying. She just said "I don't need help, but I do need a hug!" And she gave us each, sweaty and sleepy, a huge bear hug. "See you there! Come by any hour, we'll be up. Oh yeah, there's also a surprise for you a little ways up. You'll dig it!" And then we were left there, stunned, in the hot trail, and we couldn't wait to get there. We hightailed it out of there as fast as we could into the setting sun. We made it to the surprise as it was getting dark. A hollow in some oaks, decorated as a haunted house. Skeletons with sunglasses hanging from the trees and, in the middle, a fresh supply of water, soda, and beer (to Brett's delight). We hiked into the night, happy to not be hiking in the heat. We got to the road into town around 10pm. And decided to walk the two miles down the road to the house. A man out in his yard gave us slurred directions to the house between sips of beer, but we had nothing else to go off of and found ourselves winding through neighborhood streets all with strikingly similar names. Before long, we felt like we had seen the entire neighborhood, discovered both town markets, a diner, and an empty ranger station, without any sign of the famous Casa de Luna. We were about to curl up on the sidewalk, when a local kid drove by, we waved home down, and he told us that he could sometimes get cell service on one square of sidewalk next to the liquor store. Sure enough, we got service, got through to the house on the first ring, and got directions. A few minutes later, and we were on the front porch of Casa de Luna, 1am, just as the last delirious partiers were settling down to bed; limbs in every direction. We got some half-coherent info from one of the hikers setting up his bed on one of the couches out front. Apparently, we had just missed chocolate syrup wrestling, Joe would be making pancakes in the morning, we could camp in the Manzanita garden out back, and please shut the gate. And then he passed out in a heap on the couch. We made it about 3 feet into the garden, threw down our packs, and flopped onto the ground. This was our longest day, 30 miles altogether. We slept in and then had a very nice day of relaxing on the front porch with a ton of hikers. Casa de Luna is funny because it is such a vortex that we met people who had been there for weeks. It is known as the party house, but we found it to be a great place for mental rest. Spending time with good company. Feeling that there was nowhere else we needed or wanted to be. Most of the challenge with a trip like this is mental. Your body can do the work, but the number of miles you can do is all based on how you feel mentally. It's good to know that we're capable of doing a 30 mile day.