June 13, 2008 Pacific Crest Trail

Destination: Monache Meadow
Miles: 14

Adrian:
We drove down to Inyokern to pick-up Rob. It was a steep and winding drive into the desert from Kennedy Meadows. Rob was on time and we sped back into the cool hills.

We didn't get hiking until 3 p.m. and so the miles today weren't as big as we'd hoped for.

Smoke from the Clover Fire was visible almost immediately after joining the trail. Rangers told us it would be alright to pass through the fire zone during daylight hours so we moved forward with confidence.

Just before the fire zone Kirsten fell again. This time it was a scraped knee and a sizable chunk of wood stuck in her palm. The weight of her pack kept her from being able to stand-up adding insult to injury. I rushed up and helped her to our rest area in some tall Lodgepole pines. She painfully extracted the wood from her hand, washed and cleaned the various areas of broken skin, and on we hiked.

The smoke grew thicker and we could see the first of the flames as we entered the burn zone. Most of the large trees had burned but small fires were still active all around the fire. It was surreal with all the burned and burning trees and shrubs surrounding us; almost apocalyptic I'd venture to say. The smoke burned our eyes and irritated our throats motivating us to move quickly up the drainage and out into Monache Meadows, the largest in all the Sierra.

We passed a large fire crew with whom we chatted and borrowed a satellite from to call Rob's girlfriend and tell her he wouldn't be back until Tuesday night. Nice guys and girls.

We worked hard to get to the Kern River and arrived after dark, perhaps sometime around 9:45 p.m.

Good first day Rob!

Kirsten:
As usual generous people - Tiger and Chuck Norris (trail names) - helped make our day a little easier. Tiger has been driving and sometimes hiking the PCT, while her husband attempts to thru-hike. They lent us their car to drive the 30 or more miles to Inyokern to pick up Rob.

My pack - loaded down with a bear can and 11 days of food as well as an ice axe - is the heaviest it's ever been. This time that 0.7 mile roadwalk back to the trailhead quashed any excitement I had for the Sierras.

Within our first two miles I spotted a rattlesnake on the trail. It was if the desert was rising up one last time to remind us of what we had passed through these past 6 weeks.

Rob held up fine today. It was hard for all of us - Adrian and I weighted down with 11 days of food and Rob adjusting to the sore spots only a heavy backpack can create. Rob spotted a black scorpion - our first - as we approached the South Kern river.