Day 2
7.1 miles / 22.3 total
Steps: 22,441
Crabtree Meadows.
Days without shower 3
Another cold night! Wow. I have not mastered the best way to sleep on a tiny sleeping pad and in a bag yet. My arms fall asleep when I am on my side and I cannot lay on my stomach as comfortable as I use to. It is a challenge. So I got up about 6:30 and got ready. I had to go to the bathroom but there were no good spots so I had to hold it a bit and get packed up. I got all my stuff together and headed out about 7:30. The climb out of the creek wasn't easy. I stopped at the first sunny spot and found a spot to do my business and then had breakfast. The views were amazing! The key is to STOP and look and not try to walk and take it all in because I tripped over a tree root and fell over. I looked around to make sure no one saw me… unstrapped my bag because I couldn’t get up with it on and brushed myself off. It is only day 2 and I am already falling! This may be a long 22 days. The climb towards gyout pass was definitely a lot of switchbacks. Close to the top I came across a Boy Scout troop from Oceanside. That was really cool. We got to the top and all hung out for a bit and Luke caught up to us as well. It was nice having people around. I started out after a short break and went down and then flat ground for a while. A few people without packs came from the opposite direction. Pretty sure all of their stuff was on the pack horses I saw later. Luke caught up to me right after passing them and we hiked together. I made fun of him for carrying bear spray and he told me a story about a girl that he was hiking with a couple days ago who had her tent and sleeping pad chomped on by a bear in Canada. Crazy story. We talk a bit and bond over our time in the military. His last day of the Army is coming up and on his terminal leave time. We are hiking along and the views are amazing before getting down to Crabtree Meadow. We got our first view of Whitney. We got to the meadow and the girl he was telling the story about was filtering water at Whitney creek! It was awesome. We hung out and had lunch and decided to change our plans and just stay here with her. We would still summit Whitney this would be our camp for two nights which would make for a longer day but the 3 of us could hang out the rest of the day. Her name is Kylie and she is from Canada/Australia (originally). She is super cool. Her knee was hurting from coming down Whitney so she took a zero day. Zero days – mean a day hiking zero miles. She is also hiking a long section of the PCT like Luke. We soaked out feet, filtered water, told stories, laughed and got to know each other. It was a great short day. She is headed out Kearsarge Pass to resupply so we will hopefully meet up with her again but for now I think Luke and I will stay together for a couple days until his feet heal. It's kind of nice not camping/hiking completely alone. We are planning on waking up at 4 am to summit so I better get some sleep! Goodnight.
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