Today was an easy day. We only had 8.2 miles to Walker Pass, where we planned to head to Lake Isabella. We had heard good things about Lake Isabella and we were looking forward to a town stop and a resupply. Some people skipped this resupply because it is known as a long hitch. The closest town is over 30 miles from the trail. Some hikers carried enough food from Tehachapi to get them all the way to Kennedy Meadows. We, on the other hand, love light packs and so of course we planned on stopping.
8.2 miles flew by in no time with much of the same desert conditions that we had been experiencing. It was a bit windy, but nothing like the passed day or two. A quarter mile from the road at Walker Pass, we found some hikers and a bunch of trail magic with tons of donuts. This has been an abundant trail!
While Sherpa, Tofu, and I were waiting for Yote and 2.Toe to show up, a Hungarian hiker walked up. He was a hiker I met a couple days ago because he had dropped his water bottle and I chased him down to return it. He was very grateful as we were in supposedly a really dry stretch. Of course there were water caches so he was in no real danger either way. Regardless, he was very scared and now we were good friends.
I could tell he was still not having a good time and he told me in broken English that he was getting off trail at Kennedy Meadows. He said that the PCT was too hard and he was done. It is interesting how different people have such different experiences in relatively the same environments. We all have our own struggles and there are more and more people leaving the trail for this reason or that reason. The snow in the Sierra Nevada is an excuse for many people and I don’t judge anyone for making the decision to leave. I know it is one of the hardest decisions to live with after the trail. As a hiker, you have invested so much time, energy, and money towards one aim and you are deciding to give it up. That has a cost of its own that likely weighs on everyone differently but it is significant.
Yote and 2.Toe showed up and the five of us headed to the road.
We were really excited to be at Walker Pass and