We had an easy day of under five miles today until we reached the big milestone of Kennedy Meadows. Kennedy Meadows marks the end of the 700 mile desert section of the PCT and also is the gateway to the Sierras. After Kennedy Meadows is when we encounter one of the most beautiful yet also potentially most dangerous sections of trail. It is where the “real” mountains begin. It is a big milestone for all PCT hikers and it is tradition for hikers to be greeted by applause and cheering by the hikers already at Kennedy Meadows. We were all excited to reach this milestone today!
The morning hike was easy and quick. We passed the 700 mile mark and took a quick selfie and the five of us walked most of the way together. As we approached the road that goes to the general store (the general store is 0.7 miles down the road from the trail), there was a trail register. We stopped and signed our names (these appear randomly along the trail and are nice to be able to see how far ahead other hikers we’ve met are) and as we did so we noticed a guy in a white pickup truck sitting parked at the road. We dawdled a bit but the guy stayed parked looking at us. When we finally walked out to the road the guy asked if we wanted a ride for the 0.7 miles to the store. We said ok and hopped in the truck, glad to avoid walking any off trail miles.
We pulled up to the general store and felt a little cheap and guilty to reach the milestone in a car rather than by foot. The driver shouted to the hikers at the store, “what do we do when new hikers arrive?” and everyone clapped and cheered. Not the exact tradition but we will take what we can get. Many of the hikers were actually waiting for the truck because it also shuttles hikers from the general store to Grumpy Bear Restaurant a couple miles down the road.
There was a bit of chaos as we were arriving and other hikers started jumping in the truck to go to the restaurant. I started getting out but heard Wolf Bird saying he wanted to stay in to go get breakfast. The other three didn’t hear and jumped out only to discover there was now not enough space for them to get back in and go get breakfast. They said they’d catch the next ride and off we went in the truck.
Grumpy Bears serves all you can eat pancakes, but for almost everyone that amounts to one pancake. The reason for this is that their pancakes are over a foot in diameter! We also got eggs and potatoes and bacon. Tofu and Yote and 2.Toe came along shortly and we had a nice breakfast with them along with an Australian couple we just met, Flash and Sam.
We hung out for a while until we could get a ride back to the general store. There we spent the rest of the day relaxing and eating and drinking and catching up with other hikers we hadn’t seen in a while. It was cool to have all the hikers in one place, sitting on the porch of the general store for the day. We plan to zero tomorrow as well so we have time to sort out our gear and food from our packages and also so we can get to our next time on a weekday when the post office is open.
While hanging out we managed to convince Vice and Boathouse, two guys who started the same day as us, to take an extra zero and head out with us on Friday. We had a fun lazy day and drank lots of beer and laughed a lot and played some card games. In the evening we had a fire under a big teepee structure, except it was just the wooden poles of the teepee lacking the actual canvas. It was nice to hang out and hear people tell funny stories etc. We went to bed past hiker midnight at 9 or so. 
