6/13/2017 Spanish Needle Creek 668.7 to South Kern 698.1

I woke today to find I had been betrayed by my love. I opened my bag to discover that I had been Iced in the night. I hadn’t even suspected that I would be the victim of her Watermelon Mimosa malice but the evidence was there in front of me.  Thus began my epic struggle to Ice someone else before Kennedy Meadows. We packed up and of course Tofu left first followed by us leaving 2.Toe and Yote.

I don’t remember anything too special about the early miles but we eventually came across a nice stream where Curry was relaxing. We had passed Tofu at some point and so did Tidy and Megaphone who showed up soon after followed by Tofu, then Yote and 2.Toe. It was a nice shady relaxing spot and about half of our planned miles were already done so we stayed a while.

2.Toe was laying down facing away from the sun and the group and so as Sherpa and I went to leave, I slipped the Ice into her pack and made the shh sign to Yote, who graciously complied. Then Sherpa, who hadn’t seen the drop, unknowingly said “You better not sleep or you might get iced.” Which was perfect because it later made her seem complicit in the mini act of hiker bullying. A few miles later they caught up to us and we learned that Yote had been Iced only moments after she discovered my treachery.

He apparently was trying to be generous and offered to carry the glass bottle up the steep climb ahead and 2.Toe refused. But as soon as his back was turned she plunged in the icy blade right into his pack. He ended up carrying it up after all.

The descent was difficult because it was so hard and repetitive, but it was also very exciting because we could see the snow capped mountains of the Sierra for the first time!

We met them fairly early at our planned stopping site but had heard that a bear was harassing hikers and it was super early so we decided to push on after a break. While we were resting in a narrow column of shade created by some dense bushes, Yote bestowed his cool blessing on Shepa’s pack. She never even suspected a thing and discovered it just as we were leaving.

5 miles later we came to the South Kern river, only 5 miles from Kennedy Meadows! We looked around for a while for a campsite but they were difficult to find. While I was graciously walking up and down the trail to find flat ground, Sherpa took full advantage of my kindness and kindly Iced my pack. It was a long day that ended 29 miles from where we started but I felt we had come full circle.

Despite a stressful day of treasonous acts we had completed almost 700 miles of trail and we laid our heads down and slept like little hiker babies.