PEOPLE

Hikers:
We met some great people on our adventure, some while hiking on the trail and some while taking our day-of-rest at the Vermillion Valley Resort. Resort is a strong word to use for the VVR, but it was a glorious lakeside campground providing showers, laundry, a small store, cold BEER and home cooked FOOD! We started chatting with a Bruce and Heidi on the ferry ride to the VVR, and when Bruce offered to share his bag of potato chips with us later that day, we spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with them. A backcountry-savvy California couple, they perused the trail map with us and pointed out some of their favorite campsites, most of which we found and loved! They also clued us in to the option of climbing Mt. Whitney in the dark for sunrise on the summit, advise which we cannot thank them enough for—that experience was amazing! Thanks Bruce and Heidi!


Malcolm on the ferry to VVR, Bruce and Heidi to the right


Later that night we drank a beer with an extremely entertaining man from Slovakia, whose thick accent and hilarious stories kept us laughing for a few hours. Malcolm’s favorite quote from this man was “I sprayed Deet directly in my face!”
My favorite story involved a backcountry camping trip with some of his friends visiting from Slovakia. They hiked about 8 miles and were setting up camp when one of his friends reveled the contents of his backpack to be simply a handle of vodka and an ENTIRE watermelon! No sleeping bag, no food…. I guess if you consume those two things you don’t really need anything else for the rest of the night!


The beer drinking crew at VVR



We ended our night at VVR circled up around the campfire with several other hikers and the entire kitchen staff, an amusing crowd to say the least! There was a 13-year-old girl who was hiking the entire PCT (almost 3000 miles!) with her mother, a cook who had allegedly worked as president Reagan‘s pastry chef, and a staff member who called himself “fire-starter” and nearly singed our eyebrows! The full moon came up over the tree line, and howling commenced…

When we stopped to pick up our food re-supply a few days later, we got to know the Dooner family, who was picking up their food at the same time. We discovered that we were planning on summiting Whitney on the same day as us, and as a result we saw a lot of each other in the next two weeks since we were hiking around the same distance each day. We probably saw and spoke to an average of 10-15 people a day, most going the opposite direction as us, so it was great to have some fellow hikers with the same relative schedule.


Malcolm approaches the Dooners in hiking formation to talk about camping spots


Tom, Alena and their two daughters (whose names I would butcher if I tried to spell) became our “trail family” and we really enjoyed seeing them every day and swapping stories.



While a large part of the hiking experience for me is definitely having time alone in the mountains, it’s always great to meet other hikers and get a little social time in! We were lucky to meet so many cool people along the way!

Rangers:
We were very surprised to only see one pair of rangers on our entire hike. We ran into Rick and Suzanne Sanger just before lunch one day and spoke with them for about a half-hour. They were happy to teach us all about the local trees and wildflowers and to hear about where we’d been and where we were headed. Rick was a bit of celebrity in my eyes, since I had just read “The Last Season” (great book about a life-long ranger in the high Sierras-thanks Paul!) The book follows the ranger’s life the mountains and the search for him when he goes missing one season. Rick was one of the leaders of the search and a main character in the book.

That same afternoon we saw a man walking towards us on the trail carrying a bright red kayak over his shoulder. He didn’t look like he’d come very far, but when we asked him where he’d come from he casually replied “just South Lake”- which was THIRTEEN miles away!! Apparently the river the trail follows at that point is considered a class 5+, and expert kayakers are willing to hike their boats a dozen miles to take a crack at it. We had lunch downstream hoping to see him come by, but we never saw him.


Philanthropists:
We benefited from a few thumbed rides along our adventure and came across some great characters. Sierra Nevada Jim (named for his beer preference) gave us a ride to Florence Lake en route to our re-supply. When I named our destination he answered with “that’s where I’m going!”, the best phrase you could possibly hear while trying to hitch a ride up a steep hill. He swiftly navigated the narrow mountain roads, squeaking by the cars that pulled over to let him pass by. His willingness to let two dirty hikers in his car saved us 8 miles of hot asphalt hiking!

Once we finished the hike we needed to find a ride back to our car, about 2 hours North of Lone Pine. Somehow we were lucky enough to meet Bob and Jerry at the end of the trail. They picked us up at our Lone Pine hotel the next morning and delivered us to the car in Mammoth in Bob’s classic Winnebago. Malcolm and I lounged on the couches in the back, listening to their stories of past backpacking adventures and Lone Pine history. Doesn’t get much better than that!


Bob and Jerry on the road again