7/26/18 – Back on Trail

Day 36

Miles: 906.63 to 902.06

If somebody told me in the morning that we would be back on the trail today, I’d have my doubts. Yet here we are cozy in our sleeping bags with the music of Deer Creek in the background.

We took a lazy morning at the hostel, eating breakfast, packing. Sometime in the afternoon we knew we would take the bus to Red’s Meadow and camp there. Dave talked about having burger at the Cafe since yesterday when we made this plan.

“If the smoke is not bad we could hike few miles today,” Dave said.

“But you’d miss burger for dinner,” I joked.

“I’ll have one for lunch instead,” Dave laughed.

Conditions were good and so after our last meal in civilization for a while, we set out to hike to Crater Creek. Crater Creek is a lovely water source, often running strong all through the season and it has several very cool campsite on its south side. Crater Creek is also in the base of Red Cones. Four years ago our friends climbed one of the cones. We opted not to and I kind of regretted it later. I was not missing the cone today.

The view from the top was spectacular. We would never know we were hiking by a verdant green meadow if it wasn’t for us having this aerial view. We could also see the smoke from Ferguson Fire. It was beyond any fire we had ever seen. My heart was crying for the forest lost, and even more for the people whose homes are still in a very real danger of being consumed by the fire.

Back at camp we discussed whether or not to hike some more. It was only 4:00 p.m. and getting few more miles in would put us to better position for Silver Pass tomorrow. We could not find a reason for not going so we picked our packs and started hiking.

And so here we are, and it feels good to be back on the trail again. The trail is busy as through the section PCT runs alongside the JMT. We share camp with 10 other tents but you’d hardly tell. Hiker’s midnight hits and everyone is in their tent trying to get some rest for tomorrow.