Kennedy meadows was a magical place. I saw friends I hadn't seen since the start of the trail. Everyone hung out all day on the back porch eating food, drinking beer, catching up and hovering around the hiker box. I must have gone into the store to buy more food at least 6 or 7 times while I there. It was also a bit like Christmas as everyone was receiving boxes sent to themselves. I got a new pair shoes, an ice axe, microspikes, my bear canister, food and some other goodies sent by my awesome roomates. My new shoes felt amazing as I slipped my feet in to them. 700 miles of desert (plus about 100 more miles before the pct) had really taken a till on my shoes. I couldn't believe it when I compared the tread on my new shoes to my old ones. While i was excited for all the new gear i also realized that i was adding about 5 extra pounds of gear to my pack. But I also realized i wasn't going to have to carry water anymore so really it balanced out. Our group said goodbye to everybody and we got back on the trail late afternoon the next day. We made it all of 4 miles before coming across a beautiful cascading river with some enticing pools for swimming. We had intended to do about 15 miles that days, but the water just looked to good. We camped near the river and spent the evening swimming followed by a campfire. I pulled out my harmonica and serenaded everyone by the fire. I'm getting better but I'm still a far cry Neil Young or Bob Dylan. We were at a higher elevation now so the nights were getting significantly cooler. We sent up our tents sk we could have a few extra degrees of warmth. And it was a good thing we did because it ended pouring on us for about an hour during the night. Unfortunately though i left my pack outside my tent so it was soaked the next morning. But the mountain air is pretty dry so it dried out pretty quickly the next day.
Day 47 - 4 or 5 miles
We all packed up and left camp one by one the next day. With every step we knew we were getting closer to snowy peaks and endless water sources. The trail took us through a beautiful wide meadow that stretch for miles with snow capped peaks in the distance. We had our first "pass" that got up to about 10,000 feet that day. As we were going up we noticed dark clouds in the distance. As they got closer huge thunder claps echoed thriugh the mountains. You haven't heard thunder until you've heard it near the treeline in the mountains. It's quite a humbling experience. It started to rain on us so decided to wait out the storm a bit. It's started getting pretty huddled up under a tree so we pressed on. As we got higher the rain turned to "snail" as we called it. A combination of snow and hail. It came down pretty hard and pretty soon the ground all around us was white. Our first day in the sierras and already it was snowing in us! Luckily since it was snow and not rain it was dry soit didnt feel quite as cold. We camped early again because of the storm, but luckily we had just enough time to have a campfire after it blew over. I remember thinking to myself, "what we're the sierras going to throw at us tomorrow?" Despite the cold and the wet, I was still excited to find out.
Day 48 - 15 miles