June 12
Mileage 14
Mile 1018.5 to mile 1032.5

I wake when the sun rises and lay in my twin bed, watching the light move through the curtains and listening to the sounds of Bridgeport’s main street. People, the jangling of doors, traffic. It’s all very different from the sounds in the woods. A room, a window, a street- what if this was my life? Could I ever be happy in a life like this? Have I ever been? I scroll on my phone until I see that Twinkle’s awake and then we both lay in bed for a while, writing our blogs. Everyone else went to Kennedy Meadows North, a pack station just 9 miles from the trailhead, because they were smart and sent their boxes there. I don’t why I sent my box to the further place- because I like burgers, I guess. And now we should be rushing to catch our friends, but it’s nice in this room and it’s nice to lay in bed and watch the air move in the curtains and write. This room, this room. I could live here.

The post office, the grocery store, all the errands. Walking back and forth in the morning sun across the little main street. This town in so sleepy. How are we supposed to leave? Back at the room we organize our resupplies, exploding everything everywhere. Another hiker tells us that someone at the Jolly Cone was offering rides to the trailhead so we go there, buy a milkshake and burger, respectively, and a stoned teenager packs us into his SUV. We reach the trail at 1pm, slacker o’clock. Owl, the trail angel is there and we sit with him for a while, eat chocolate cake. Then 14 cruiser miles over the hill and through the forest- although the first couple of miles are slushy snowfields. We find a note from the others saying they’re headed 19 miles, and we think about it, but then at 7 pm we find a campsite with a fire ring and decide to pretend we’re Twig. Twinkle warms the pizza that he packed out over our fire- I have a bite and it’s the best thing that anyone ever ate on trail, ever. Later Twig actually walks by, With Lead Dog, but they’re night hiking on- trying to get to Tahoe by noon Saturday. Godspeed, we say.

Photos on instagram