Day 21, 11.8 miles (into Lake City)

Hello there! Today was the most beautiful day so far, my favorite on trail hands down! Also, a TON happened so again, I won’t spend too much time writing as it’s almost 9:30pm as I start this blog and I have a TON of pictures to throw at ya! 

Cheeseburgler, Bougie, and Stoke!

Cheese and I started hiking about 6:30 today. The meadow was gorgeous and the mosses were still about. Most other hikers were already gone! About half a mile down the way we ran into Bougie and Stoke from Oregon again! 

We climbed over a few mini passes up about 1,500 feet in total! We were soon above treeline and every corner and every view point became more and more spectacular! 

We climbed and climbed and climbed and then finally crested and slowly wrapped around a big bowl to reach Snow Mesa! This is a beautiful high Mesa plain above treeline that we hiked on for 7+ miles! Gorgeous on a morning like this, horrific if stuck in an afternoon lightning storm! This is why I took a little more time to plan the mileage of this section! 

😋 

The end of Snow Mesa

It was awesome going along cruise terrain like that but so high up! Eventually we came to the end of the Mesa and faced a 2 mile descent down to Spring Creek Pass Trailhead.

Of course there were a bunch of hikers already there trying to hitch a ride from every car!

And I mean EVERY car!!

When this happens there is an unspoken rule that who was there first shall get the first hitch. Which was fine because the awesome city of Lake City organizes a shuttle to pick hikers up from the pass everyday around 12:30! This is sweet because this 17 mile hitch would’ve been HARD for the 10+ hikers that were there. Another group of four got an earlier ride and as it started raining the remaining 5 of us huddled under an information board while we waited for the shuttle.

Cheeseburgler, Bougie, Stoke, Buttons, and Red

I didn’t take anymore pictures after this but it rained hard and the wind blew in from all directions so there was no dry ground left and we all got soaked before the shuttle arrived 😂 We drove down to Lake City and to the Presbyterian church Annex for Hikers! This place is so awesome, I wish I had taken pictures of the inside earlier in the day.

Hot cocoa!!

After that we walked a little under half a mile to the campground where Cheese’s dad was staying with their RV and doggo Scooby! It was an adorable reunion!

Scooby knocked Cheese over right after these pictures!

Making some dogs! (The other hikers were jealous)

We did some laundry and took showers at the campground, then Cheese took me to the country store to resupply. At 5:15 we headed back to the Annex for the Sunday dinner Potluck! The whole city gets together to treat the hikers to a feast! As we walked in every one of us hand to ring the gong and everyone cheered! It was amazing! There was 48 of us total there (that they could count).

Cheese fountain! 

Hoooooooly Moooooooly I ate a lot of food! I don’t know how they managed to find all the nicest people in the world and put them all in this city but oh man, Lake City just because one of my favorite places I’ve ever been to! They asked if we could mingle and split from other hikers so that the locals could talk with us and ask us about the trail.

James on left, Jim on right

Me and another hiker I’d never met until today named Jumpstart, talked to James and Jim for probably an hour while we stuffed our faces! They are such awesome people and we enjoyed telling our crazy hiking stories. I retold how in 2016, Claire and I got scored a single hitch from Lee Vining, CA all the way to Portland OR! 

This is Jason, he’s the minister of the Presbetyrian church and the organizer for Sunday potluck! 

David wrote this book! (The 76 year old who has hiked this trail 8 times!!) 

Dinner was so awesome! We left the annex with Prison Mike and he offered to buy us both Ice cream! (Christian, the shuttle driver who drove us down from the trailhead is a part owner of the ice cream shop!) How could this day get any better?!

Prison Mike, Cheese, and I!

King of the bed

🥰 

Found these in the store, gonna try em for the last leg!

Desperate times call for cutting your $55 footbeds up with a tiny dull camp knife 😂 

Ok guys, craaaazy story! I wanted to let Cheese organize his food in the trailer so to vacate the zone for a bit and give him more room I went out to the common area of the campground to write my blog. It’s a pleasant evening and as I sat there without my shoes or socks on, the camp host comes up to lock something and take out the trash. He has a service dog. But another dog (not his!), comes up and steals one of my shoes and runs off!!

I’m like “nooooooo!!” The guy was just as irritated as I was, and luckily he went to go hunt the retriever down and retrieve my hiking shoe!! Whew! I would be so screwed if he chewed it up, buried it, or tossed it in the nearby river! What a night! 

Ok real quick, this is the elevation profile of the next 50 miles, and the red line is 12,000 feet, which is 100-300 fr above tree line! Basically, this next part of the trial will require the most planning of any so far so that we don’t get caught in thunderstorms exposed way up high!! It’s gonna be a wild one! Being flexible and having a backup plan or two is the key! 

Thanks for reading!!