It was hard getting up this morning as it was chilly out and we were warm and comfy in our sleeping bags. But alas we had miles to walk. We left the shelter and had to walk by the cows we saw yesterday, which I’m of course afraid of due to my cow incident on the AT. I made Wolf Bird act as my buffer and shield from the cows and luckily survived without them even really looking at me.
The morning really flew by today! There was a section with a fair amount of snow but Wolf Bird and I opted to go off trail and walk downhill below the snow, paralleling the trail for a bit. This was easier than walking on the snow and before we knew it we were past the snow. We leapfrogged a bit with a guy whose name I don’t know but will call Angry British Guy. He is my trail enemy. Well not really but back in Bishop we did get into sort of an argument. A bunch of hikers were sitting around chatting (including him) and somehow Inchworm came up. She was an AT hiker in her 60s in 2013 who went missing in Maine on her thru hike and later was found dead in her tent less than a mile off trail. Wolf Bird and I had met her the day before she went missing and always found this story so especially sad because of how nice she was and how competent she seemed. Anyway people were talking about her and Angry British Guy (ABG) kept trying to contribute to the conversation but with incorrect facts. He was like “oh yeah wasn’t that in 2015” and the guy he was talking to was like “no, 2013” and ABG sort of denied it and made it seem like he still thought it was 2015. He also thought it happened in Virginia not Maine and acted like the other guy was wrong when he stated it was Maine. I wasn’t participating in their conversation but only listening and slightly amused at how people sometimes try to act like experts on something they know very little about. But then ABG went on a rant about how Inchworm was so incompetent and did everything wrong and didn’t know what she was doing. This really crossed the line for me and I couldn’t just stay silent. I felt he was being extremely disrespectful talking poorly about her when he’d already demonstrated he didn’t know the basic facts surrounding her situation. I thought it was even worse to talk bad about someone that has passed away in a tragic situation when we couldnt possibly know her exact circumstances. So I spoke up and said something to the effect of “inchworm was just as competent as any other hiker on the AT or this trail. I don’t appreciate the way you’re talking about her” and he replied asking if I knew her and that he’d heard she got lost all the time and how can you even get lost on the AT. I told him I felt it’d be very easy to lose the trail or get turned around especially in such a rugged part of Maine and he of course disagreed. I could tell we wouldn’t agree on anything so I then just asked him if he would stop talking about it because I felt he was being disrespectful. He then argued he wasn’t being disrespectful. I didn’t want to argue so I was just like ok, fine, will you please stop talking about it regardless. Finally he did and it was sort of awkward for a while but I’m glad I spoke up. Anyway since then I was not a fan of ABG and was absolutely shocked when he also flipped like us. He’d been bragging about how light his pack was for the next section of the Sierra! I guess he changed his mind.
Anyway so we were around him a fair amount yesterday and today and he was not friendly (maybe he also dislikes me). It was just awkward as he didn’t greet us when we walked by as is normal etiquette especially when we greet him, and he gives off a very stressed and negative vibe. I am happy to say we did a 26 mile day today and lost him! At least for now. Ok rant over!
We passed the California/Oregon border today and actually took a lunch break at it. It was weird because we didn’t actually walk all of California yet so it wasn’t an exciting moment as it would’ve been walking north all the way to this point. Oh well, one of the downsides of flipping I guess.
We waited for Yote and 2.Toe for an hour and a half at the border but they didn’t show. We wrote a note to them in the register that we planned to go about 12 more miles today and hiked on.
The afternoon passed quickly. There was more snow but we were able to walk pretty quickly through it by opting to follow a forest service road that parallels the trail. This allowed us to avoid difficulties in navigation, as it was obvious where the road went even when it was covered in snow. Not so much for the trail.
We decided to stop a mile shy of our intended campsite as it was growing late and we found a nice area with a good view. We weren’t sure if the other two would Come along or not. I was brushing my teeth just before bed when I spotted them down below the trail on the forest service road! I was glad for the coincidence because if we’d been in our tent I don’t think they couldve seen it from where they were. We chatted with them briefly before bed and got a good nights rest.