August 27, 2020
We cut our three and a half day hike down to three days because today we did 16 miles. It was mostly down hill on dusty, blasé terrain, but it was liberating to actually make decent mileage. It made me believe I could go on. However as the hours went on, my calves were cramping. I felt spent. I hadn’t stopped or taken my pack off since our 1:15 lunch break.
I didn’t get into Red’s Meadow until 5:50. Terry had gone ahead thinking that the Red’s Meadow Resort store and cafe would close at 6:00, and it turned out he was correct. He arrived ten minutes before I did and bought some cold drinks. He headed over to the cafe hoping to buy French fries. I purchased two ice cream bars and two showers. They didn’t have fries so he returned with two ice creams. Ice cream supper it was. At least we thought we could take a shower. As it turned out we could have if the cashier had told me we needed to pay for soap and towel rental. Oh well.
We felt lucky to get a spot to put up our tent in the backpackers campground. We shared a beer, a large one, and headed over to the hot springs tub (106 degrees) and I was at peace with my broken body again. We would worry about how to get back to our car tomorrow.
Mountain Peace 