After our long 30 mile day, we were tired but still excited to make it to Kennedy Meadows. We woke up early and started the day with a moderate climb. At the top of the climb we had a snack break and from then on it was mostly downhill.
At a creek crossing, we came upon some people who had seen a bear. Bears are pretty rare in he desert, so this was really interesting. It turns out one of the guys had left his food bag by his tent and a bear came and took it. He was only about 20 feet away at the time and he and everyone else spent the next several hours watching the bear eat all of his food.
Not long after, we came on the Kern river, the largest river we’ve seen so far. We sat by the river eating, with just a few miles of “desert” left. At this point, the mountains were changing. They were taller and rockier, there were less cactuses, and less lizards. Of course I did see one last rattlesnake though. My second of the trail.
But finally we made it to Kennedy Meadows. The end of the desert and the gateway to the Sierras. It’s a small community with a general store and a restaurant. All the electricity is from gas generators and all the hikers got to share one DSL internet connection. We planned on taking a day off here to rest up before the “real” mountains.
We caught a ride to the restaurant a few miles down the road, a place called Grumpy Bear’s. We ordered food and hung out. Their internet worked slightly better than the internet at the general store. Towards the end of the night, we talked about going back to the general store, where they allow camping when the waitress told us we could camp in their parking lot. This was great, because we could be first in line for breakfast in the morning and use the internet before everyone else showed up.
So we slept in (7:00 am) and ordered the breakfast. Eggs, bacon, and all you can eat pancake. Yes, just one pancake. It was all you can eat but I didn’t see anyone eat more than one. I just barely finished mine.
We caught a ride back to the general store, where we had packages waiting. A bear can, ice axe, and food for the next week. We figured out how to repack our bags with the new gear and snacked the rest of the day until the store brought us out pizza from papa johns. (No idea where the closest papa johns is)
Finally, we set up camp near the store so we can hit the trail early. It’s about to get a whole lot harder.