Nick and I took our time this morning. We had 25 miles to Sonora Pass, and I knew we could do that pretty easily. We got going and ran into Trooper and Argues With Tractor. We chatted about the insane amount of mosquitos that are in the Sierras (how is it we killed off the harmless, gentle dodo, but we haven't eradicated the mosquito?) Looking at my data book, I saw that we were coming up on mile 1000. After a few miles, we came upon the little "gateway" and 1000 written in rocks. I took a picture and will post it when I can. Woo-hoo! One thousand miles!!
The walk was easy in the morning, but I had a bit of a climb ahead of me. Nick and I stopped at the last water source for the next 10 miles, and had lunch. We bumped into Joel at this point, who was trying to get to Sonora Pass to hitch into Bridgeport.
After about an hour, we started to climb. It was fairly steep and the path was sandy, which is hard enough to walk on let alone doing it uphill.
I stopped to catch my breath and look at the views when Nick said someone was gaining on us. I looked, and what do you know? It's Don't Panic! The guy is insane! So we all started the climb again. We got to a jeep road, and then the real climb began. If I said a 5 gradient was steep, this must have been a 12. It was really narrow, sandy and straight up on a slope that felt like more than 45 degrees. Thankfully, there wasn't much snow.
We reached the ridge without incident, and the crest walk was breathtaking!! Views of all the mountains, looking down into the valleys filled with lakes and rivers. Worth the hard climb. Absolutely gorgeous.
I could see the highway at this point, and a shower and hot meal I didn't cook started to sound reaaaal good. We trekked on down to the pass to see Joel sitting there as cars drove past without picking him up. Poor guy! So we sat with him while Nick went to the restroom at the trailhead. When he came back, he was carrying a bowl with apple pie in it. Bwuuuh!? Then Meadow Mary showed up and said she was working some Trail Magic and had hotdogs, chili and beer. (insert sound of angels singing)
After we had eaten, a hiker by the name of Sherpa showed up in his car and offered us a ride. The three of us still hadn't made up our minds, so I said yes. We all piled into a Pontiac Vibe (think driver and four hikers with large packs; not easy). We got to town, got the last room at the Walker River Lodge, which turned out to be a two bedroom apartment, for $100 bucks a night! That's $25 per person. Just imagine if we had six more people. There was certainly plenty of room. And a hot shower. I'm going to sleep well tonight.
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