I slept well at Kennedy Meadows and by 9 am I had already walked the mile back to HW108. The hitchhiking didn't go as well as yesterday. Cars came only every few minutes and none were stopping. An hour passed. I was checking my maps if there was a way to hike back. No. Another hour passed. Suddenly an old dusty camper pickup stopped. I didn't think they had stopped for me because there were already two people in the car. But yes, this old pickup had a bench where three people could sit. Awesome.
Ike and Liz had both been at Burning Man but actually met just two days ago at an afterburner camp. Both were from Israel (I keep meeting people from Israel) and Ike had been here already for several months driving around the country. They were super friendly, immediately offered me some food and we had a good time while the old truck very slowly made it's way up the pass.
At the trailhead two backpackers, Steve and Julie with their dog Darcy, just came off the trail because Darcy was suffering at the paws and hips. So sorry. I know the terrain is super tough for dogs as we learned last year when we took our daughter two dogs for four days backpacking here.
Once on the trail the weather became more and more cloudy and very windy.
A dayhiker I met told me that she even saw a few snow flurries at the top (which is over 11000ft). The views were awesome though.
I didn't see snow but the temperature was just a few degrees above freezing and the wind so strong it blew me off balance a few times. For those who don't know the trail is very exposed along a ridge for maybe seven miles.
There is a special PCT marker spelled PTC...
While I stopped and was adding another layer a hiker caught up to me very fast. His name was Nick and he had started at Barker Pass, almost at the same spot where I had started, just more recent because he hiked much faster. He didn't have a trail name and while both the Sonora winds and he were blowing by me I thought his trail name should be Blowing By - but he was gone already. I took a picture while he was way ahead on the switchbacks.
A long while later I arrived at the camp site where Nick had settled and we had a nice chat. He seemed to like the name Blowing By. When not hiking he is a musician and happens to be on tour in Germany regularly. He had hiked up the Zugspitze just at about the time when we were there. So funny, because we had almost made the same tour if the weather on the Hochkönig wouldn't had cooperated.
Trailhead
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