PCT: Day 99

We spent the first half of today getting to trail and the second half hiking. We grab an early crowded bus, along with another 27 hikers, from Bishop to Independence and then hitch from there to the trailhead.

We start the long slow climb up Kearsarge Pass, but the weather is nice and cool and we ascend without much trouble. We stop for lunch on the way up and realize we’re missing a small food bag which had some snacks, but more importantly the spoons we use for almost every meal. They’re either in our van or in Portland, neither of which helps us here. We dump all the food out and take inventory which isn’t too bad. We might be a bit light on snacks, but all of our meals made it. Not having spoons will be a pain, but worse case we’ll whittle some from sticks, or use rocks, or eat like animals. This would have been a big deal earlier in the trip, but out of all the things that can go wrong this is low on the list.

We continue up Kearsarge Pass after lunch and its obvious that the time off hasnt affected the kids’ trail legs or altitude acclamation. Bat Bot leads most of the way afer lunch and barely stops on the way up. We hike a couple miles after the pass and camp about a mile below Glen Pass so we can get up and over it first thing tomorrow morning. Blue Lizard and I ate directly from the bags we cooked in while the kids attempted to use a rock for a spoon before giving up and using our method. I attempted to whittle spoons, but the only wood around was weak and highly resinous and piney. As much as we like the smell of pine, we didn’t want to taste it in our food.