PCT: Day 103

Taxi… bus…Yosemite…bus…hotel…sleep. That was pretty much what we did today.  We jumped on an initial bus that ran from Fresno to Yosemite followed by another that ran from Yosemite to Mammoth Lakes.  We were ultimately trying to get to Bishop where our van was parked, but more on that later. The travel itself wasn’t bad and we had a 5hr layover in Yosemite of all places.  Visiting Yosemite is a lot people’s dream vacation, but for us it was a nice layover between bus rides.  Full disclosure: we’ve already been to Yosemite twice in the last 3 years so the park and the crowds it involves aren’t new to us.  We still had a great time. We ate lunch and let the kids swim in the Merced River while Waterboy fished.

We, and about 10 other PCT and JMT hikers thought we were taking a 2:30 bus out, but 2:30 and then 3pm came and went with no bus.  Blue Lizard eventually found the fine print that the 2:30 bus doesn’t start until July.  We killed time at the bus stop until the 5pm bus arrived.  This put a wrinkle in our plan to catch a 7pm bus from Mammoth Lakes to Bishop since we didn’t get to Mammoth until after 8pm. On top of that, today is a Friday and the bus to Bishop doesn’t run on weekends. Luckily we managed to arrange a ride to Bishop the the next day with the trail angel, Christina, at whose house we parked our van. She has been awesome in helping us every time we’ve ended up in Bishop.

We checked into small room at a Motel 6 late in the evening. Mammoth Lakes is a big tourist destination so this was also our most expensive hotel of the trip. After checking in we went to a pizza place for dinner, ate pizza while trying not to fall asleep, and got back to the motel after 10pm. We’ll be in Bishop tomorrow and then need to find a way to kill a few days before a long awaited Airbnb with our friends Aaron and Jody and their kids.