Day 64 - cs892b to Mammoth Lakes

I think we had the coldest night yet. With my new sleeping pad, I didn't suffer that much under my quilt, but my face were exposed and cold during the night. I kept turning to sleep on my side, so I'd have a bit more quilt to cover my head as well. It was cold, but we survived.
In the morning it was still cold, and we had some water bottles and bags freeze on us. I had some extra oatmeal packets with me, so we've made hot oatmeal from all the oatmeal and shared it. That was very nice.
We finally left the campsite just after we got some sun, and started our long hike down. Idan wanted to get to the Red's Meadow store at 15:00 at the latest. That's the place where we were going to catch the bus down into town. It wasn't a hard schedule, for 14 miles, but we weren't in a hurry. So Idan just went ahead into town as fast as he could, like he likes to do. He got there at 12:30. Fast.
Right after leaving camp we met Dan, who was camping just a bit further on. Apparently we've met him some 700 miles back, just before Ziggy and The Bear. I recall meeting him there by the spigot, and that he got picked up by a friend at the highway.
Yair and I walked most of the day together. I put on some music on my phone's speaker, and we also listened to a Louis C. K. recorded show on the way. I hope it didn't bother any southbounders that passed us.
The trail was almost all down hill and easy. We got some nice views to the valley on our left, but near the end of the day there was a big section full of dead and broken trees.

This is what a burnt and broken forest look like

We stopped on the way several times, finishing up all our snacks just because we had them. Some hikers passed us during the day, including Mozi and Emu, Twice and Handbrake. We met them all down at the store.
We finally did get to the store at 14:50. Right according to plan. We got on the first bus, to the ski resort, and had a very nice bus driver. He told me where I can find a coupon for 2 for 1 to the famous pizza place we were planning on, and told me about the fire, 21 years ago, that burned those trees we saw. 3 years ago they also had a crazy wind storm (gusts up to 180mph and constant wind of about 120mph, for 12 hours) that uprooted many trees as well. Scary.
At the resort we got on the free bus down to town, and there we got on the (free, again) bus over to the motel.
We found Idan arguing at the office, getting us a room with a fridge, for the same price, instead of the one we originally got. Then he also got the price down somehow. Amazing.
We got those pizza coupons for dinner, and headed out over there with Twice, Sockpot and Big Boots. They zeroed here today and are leaving tomorrow. We also met Dan on the way, and he joined us.
We got 6 large pizzas for a table of 7, so nobody left hungry. We even got one slice left over from our pizzas for breakfast tomorrow. Others also left with plenty of leftovers.
Passing by the outfitter, I got a card of a local seamstress who might be able to help me fix my tent's zippers. Tomorrow is Sunday, but I will email her asking her if she can have a look, or maybe on Monday morning.

Day 51 - pct mile 753 to Crabtree Meadows

Last night, Yair analyzed my cold nights problem, suggesting that maybe it's because I have a short sleeping pad, and a quilt. The bit where my quilt gets off the pad is open underneath, and the heat escapes from inside.

View towards Mt. Guyot and Siberian Pass Creek

I used his rain jacket at night, to put it over the gap, and I think it did help a little. I am now considering getting a short z-rest pad to close that gap, or replacing my short pad for a regular length one. I'll see in Lone Pine.

Idan and Yair crossing Rock Creek

Today was an easy day. It felt like it was mostly down, even though it was about as much uphill. There were many water sources, and we stopped to rest at two of them. We also got a good look towards Forrester Pass, the highest point on the pct, which we will cross in two days.

Crossing Whitney Creek, right before taking the side trail up to Whiteney

We got to Crabtree Meadows at around 16:30. It's very nice and relaxed here. We washed our feet in icy cold water, and cleaned our socks.

View from Lower Crabtree Meadows

At about 18:00, Happy Pants, Big Boots, Sock Pot and Leapfrog came down from Whitney. They said it wasn't too cold up there, and that there are no major snow sections.
They only climbed up and down today, but we plan on hiking 5 miles more after we get down, so we will get up at 5:00 tomorrow, and hope to make a good time climbing to the peak.

Day 47 - Kennedy Meadows to Kennedy Meadows campground

Today was almost a zero day.
We woke up to a chilly morning, and Yair took off to Ridgecrest to return his rental car. We were hoping he'd have good luck hitching back.

Bambi and Rudolph relaxing at the "Internet Cafe"

We finally got our laundry done, and had a shower, after the water shortage ended. So we were relatively clean. I then started the task of arranging my food for the next 7 hiking days. It's a long stretch, and we also have to fit about 5 days of food inside our Bear canisters. I managed to get all of my food inside my canister, for the entire 7 days. I just don't eat that much. I hope I won't get too hungry on the trail.
Yair got back just before 13:00, and we decided officially that we'd head out in the evening, just to hike the short, 2.4 miles trail to the campground.
We spent the rest of the time organizing, sending boxes to Lone Pine, eating good meals I got from home (thanks!) and laying around.
At about 18:00 we left the general store, and headed out. We stopped to weigh our heavy packs at the Internet Cafe. Idan's was 40 pounds, Yair's was 35, and mine was just 30. I hope I didn't forget anything.

Entering Bear country

The trail to the campground was easy, and Yair got his first taste of the pct. Once there, we found a nice spot not far from the water spigot, set up camp and made dinner.
A short while later Big Boots, Sock Pot and Twice came by, and made a camp fire in their campsite. We joined in for a while, and it was very nice. Penguin also showed up and camped nearby.
All in all, a very relaxing and easy day.

Days 42-43 - zeroing in Lake Isabella

After the great trail magic dinner up at Walker Pass campground, we also had pancake breakfast for dinner. I failed miserably, and only had one. What can I say? I'm not a breakfast person.
There was another hiker that came in last night, after doing a 40 mile day. And two more that strolled in this morning after doing over 30 yesterday. They were all heading out, and not going into town.
We went out to the highway, and got a hitch in about 10 minutes. The lady who picked us up, Helen, said she just started noticing hikers on this road this year. She leaves in Ridgecrest, and drives over to Lake Isabella every Friday. Two weeks ago she picked up a thru-Hiker from Scotland, and first learned on the whole pct. She was very interested in our hike, and asked a lot of questions about it.
When we got down to Lake Isabella, she said she'd like to take us over to the next town of Kernville, to show us the nice Park over there. So she drove 10 extra miles over there, and we saw the nice Park and the Kern river over there.
Afterwards she got us back to the Lake Isabella motel, and we waited for Big Boots, Rudolph and Bambi. We all shared a two queen size bed room, and Big Boots got to sleep on the floor (and pay less).
We did our laundry while waiting for the room to be ready, and later had a shower. It feels so much nicer to be clean in towns.
Idan and I went over to eat something for lunch. I had a burrito. It was all right, but wasn't made of the freshest ingredients. Then we went to Vons and got supplies for the next, 2.5 days, section to Kennedy Meadows. We also got some town food for tomorrow breakfast and lunch.
Many other hikers arrived during the day, filling up the motel. At the evening Writer came in with a new shipment of hikers, including Penguin. Writer has started a thru-hike on April, and wanted to write about the trail and the hikers. She switched to section hiking, to concentrate more on her writing. She posts her articles on http://howdoyouhikethepct.com
I went for dinner with Big Boots, Sock Pot, Young Oak and Writer, at a nearby Mexican place (a real restaurant, not the fast food from lunch). Writer kept asking us about what motivates us, and what makes us hike the trail. It was an interesting conversation. She got our contact details so she will be able to ask more questions later, for her project.
On our second zero we pretty much did nothing except move three rooms down. And a sand twister took Idan's hat flying across the road, when we went out for lunch.

Day 37 - Zero day at Tehachapi

Breakfast at Kelcy's Restaurant

Well, for breakfast I went over to the nearby Kelcy's, which is a local establishment. I got eggs with onions, mushrooms and tomatoes, home fries and biscuits with gravy. It was very good, but I couldn't even finish it all.
Idan wanted a change of scenery, so we checked out of the Santa Fe, and headed over to the cheaper Ranch Motel. It's a bit off the main road, but the room was much better, so it turned out well.

Just a strange murial

Later we decided to go grocery shopping for the next section. We messaged Kay, and she picked us up in 5 minutes. That was really nice of her. We bought our food, meeting a lot of other hikers in the store. Early-B bought some freeze dried Mountain House meals at the nearby Big 5 store, so I ditched two Knorr meals and headed over there (with Kay driving). Sadly, they had no vegetarian meals over there, and I had to trouble Kay for another quick stop, this time at the other supermarket, to get two Knorr meals again.
Back at the motel, we were just resting and doing nothing, when suddenly Idan thought of checking whether Lake Isabella, our next stop, has somewhere to buy gas canisters. They don't. So we had to walk the long long way back to the Big 5 (nobody stopped to give us a ride), buy the damn big can they were selling (they didn't sell the smaller ones), and walk all the way back. Annoying and tiresome.
We were looking around for someplace to eat, doing a short tour in the main street. The Italian restaurant seemed nice, but Idan was too afraid by its atmosphere. Or maybe it was the fact that Penguin was there with her husband. Anyway, we left.
We passed by our old motel, and met Sock Pot, who told us that Cheese and Butters were in our old room (oh... the memories. Feels like it was yesterday), so we dropped by to say hello. Then we just got back to our room and ordered Domino's using their app. It wasn't easy, but we managed to get it to work.

And Pizzas for dinner