I launched Tina on a two mile slack pack across the "meadow" and agreed to meet her with her pack at the campground where the PCT started its climb back up. To slack pack means to walk with no or a mostly-unloaded pack while someone else arranges for your pack to be waiting for you at the end of the day (or, in this case, just two miles). Some hostels and motels along this trail (and the AT) get more nights out of hikers by dropping them off in the morning and picking them up at the end of the day to return to the hostel. Some very strategically-located ones can actually pull this trick off for several days!! Anyway, Tina has never slack packed before (on the AT or the PCT) but with her extra heavy pack it seemed like a good way to ease a couple miles at the start of a long day.
When she arrived to meet me that couple miles later she said that it'd been a great choice because the path had been hot and all deep sand. The funny thing is that I'd offered the same 2-mile slack to three other hikers that were ready to head out when Tina was and all had turned me down. But when they finally arrived to where I had waited for Tina they had become enlightened and understood the error of their ways .. ;-)
Tina went on to hike about 20 miles yesterday with 4700 feet of elevation gain and camped above 9000 feet at what sounded like a nice spot (excepting the vicious mosquitoes -- the price for camping near water). Here is her (GeoPro) text message from last night describing the day's hike and campsite: "Beautiful meadows with streams running through them. Much greener. Lots more water. Some small waterfalls. Gorgeous views from campsite. Up high amongst boulders. Can see some snowdrifts about 100 yards off. Tenderfoot and Dreamcrusher in trees below, not far."
Tenderfoot and Dream Crusher are a couple we met way back underneath I-10. Tenderfoot is the guy and Dream Crusher is the girl, btw. :) I'll note now for future message excerpts that sending a message from the GeoPro is much harder than sending one from a cell phone and so you're forced into a telegraph style of talking. The amount of text above probably took her 5-10 minutes to enter.
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The original plan was for Tina to reach the 2.5 mile Trail Pass exit tomorrow with me picking her up at Horseshoe Meadows but with the 13 miles of progress she'd made by lunch today and stretch goal has become to come all the way today yet (~46 miles and ~9000 feet elevation gain for the two days). We're both hoping that works out. I'm really looking forward to seeing all the pictures plus she reported that she'd both seen and photographed her first marmot of the trip. We gather that they'll be common throughout the High Sierras.
The biking is still good. I rode the 47 miles out, up, and back to Walker Pass this morning to get some good trial time on a new hydration pack I bought yesterday. Good ride and everything with the pack was fine. Later I went to hang out again with Bob at the bike shop and petted on the shop dog and cat, Abby and BobCat a bit more too. ;-)
Until later, David