Lily and I hiked out the next morning in cool, crisp weather. The trail gently rolled its way between boulders and pine trees, me and my ungainly sack-of-potatoes pack rolling along with it. Ten days of food. Lily bade me farewell after a few miles, leaving me to contemplate the mountain range in front of me. I hoped there was still snow, because it is beautiful, but also knew full well that I's be cursing it if I ended up in it. The notion of the mountains' enormity was exciting, even as I hiked through another burn, this one I had actually seen on fire when I walked through in 2008.
About five miles in, I stopped for some water at a spring that was being taken over for a campsite by a gang of Catholic seminarians from Indiana. Also present were one exceedingly harried horse packer and Sugar. He scrutinized me, smiles, and adressed me as "Crown." That's what I get for being such a showboat with my T-Bomb.
The trail snook up over a little ridge and down into enormous Monache Meadows. These are a sagebrush sea, miles across, with little islands of trees on elevated pieces of land. They inspire awe and disquiet in me: there's something about their open emptiness that reminds me of salt flats or playas, something forbidding about their scale.
Tucked in along one shore of this sea is the Kern River, here just a creek, which the trail crosses by a handsome bridge. I love this spot, as hundreds of swallows nest underneath the bridge, careening around you as you stand there. I am not alone in this love, as dozens of hikers were there, basking in the sun or yelling at one another. Someone had bathed using soap in the creek, a total pet peeve of mine. Bubbles collected in the eddies and clung to grassy shore. Putting soap into water you know others have to drink seems like the height of mannerlessness. Maybe they assume that it cannot matter, because the river can just flush it away. But there are now too many of us for that to work.
There were also other things in that creek, things that were caught and held my eye: trout. I tried for about an hour but without luck. Or that much skill, really. My angling was cut short by a naked long haired man in the water a bit downstream from me. He rose out in a big move of beard, hair, and 20-something hubris, pausing to glance at his girl on the bank to gauge efficacy. It looked like an overwrought scene from a PBS special about early man. The fish and I both left in disgust.
On my way out of the meadow, I saw Coppertone hiking south along the PCT. Remember him? He gave me a root beer float at Walker Pass. Anyway, he seemed to be in great spirits. He was also definitely very naked. One must assume the two are linked. Also, his name made a lot more sense now.
The air got a distinct alpine evening chill to it as I hiked up along Cow Creek, topping out at a spring. The cold forced me into the tent and bag as soon as the sun finally set.
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