PCT Day 36 – The Membrane

Per usual, I slept well the last night in town, having completed all my chores. I show up at Bob’s door at 6am and we hustle over to the overpriced bakery for some breakfast sandwiches. After that we synchronize our secret decoder rings so that we are now friends for life and then I head over to the Shilo Inn to wait for the shuttle bus that carries people around the Mammoth/Yosemite area.

Escape velocity

Another hiker is there waiting for the bus, too. Her name is Jen and she is just finishing up the JMT.

The bus is really late. We check the times on the schedule. All seem well until I see written at the bottom of the schedule in fine print a startling statement:

The bus we are waiting for, the 395-1, no longer runs after August 31. It is September 1! The 395-2 bus runs in 90 mins. Jen goes for coffee at the nearby Starbucks. I try hitchhiking for 20 minutes and give up. I join Jen in Starbucks. As I sit there, a bearded older man (not unlike myself) comes up to me, proclaims that he is a writer and hands me his latest work – a staple stack of paper with pictures from the 1960s. The “writing” is promoting LSD. I wish I had more time to mess with this guy, but our bus is arriving soon.

There is another hiker at the bus stop. A woman is clinging to him weepily. They are both young. The longer it takes for the bus to arrive, the more awkward it gets. But the bus does come, and we leave for Tuolumne Meadows – the place I got off the trail two days ago.

The bus driver is an aspiring tour guide. She describes everything ahead to the people in the first two rows. Above the driver is a sign “Do not talk to driver while coach is in motion”. We chat away merrily the whole way there.

Hiking again, finally

I return the custom hitchhiking sign to the postmaster/graffiti artist at the Tuolumne Meadows store, as promised, and off I go.

Not long after I leave I run across two ladies on a bridge. They announce that they are trail angels from South Lake. Tahoe. They seem really excited to meet me. “My first SOBO this year,” one says. I mention that I saw the list of trail angels posted on the no parking sign at the trail head in South Lake Tahoe. Susanne says proudly, “That was my work.”

I almost forgot. It’s time for my weekly selfie.

The trail leads me up Lyell Canyon toward Donahue Pass. The Lyell Fork runs the length of the canyon and will be my wing man all day, hanging out on my left, yammering in my ear, begging me to capture it with my camera. The nice thing about walking next to a creek like this is that the nagging anxiety about water sources is eliminated. At any time, you can just amble the 10 to 500 feet over to the creek and and fill up.

Here is my lunch spot under a tree looking over the Lyell Fork and its western canyon wall.

I resist taking a million pictures of the creek, but when I see this nifty waterfall over smooth granite, I have to record it. Why does the creek run here when the canyon floor is covered with softer soil more suitable for a creek bed? I guess it’s just showing off.

Foreboding

Occasionally I pause to look behind me. I am leery of the smoke that has been the topic of so many conversations today. At about 2:30, it comes, creeping up the canyon behind me like a cat stalking a bird. I fly. I had planned to camp lower in the canyon tonight, but now I start looking for a place higher up. The smoke will be worse at lower elevations.

But even at higher elevations there is still plenty of smoke and it just keeps pouring in.

I start climbing toward Donahue Pass. There is a camping area near a ford over the Lyell about halfway up. From here it looks like there is no exit.

Partings

On the trail, I meet Alex. He is the young man who was comforting his wife at the bus stop. He asks how I am doing and I mention what I have said in this blog before about the strangeness of the first day back on the trail – how it feels like you are partly in two worlds and fully in none.

I mention how hard it seemed for his wife to say goodbye at the bus stop. He admits that it was and that he did not expect her to do that. I relate my own feelings about separation from Patti on the trail. How I love talking with her but how I feel that nothing I say can express what I am going through out here. I assure him that he will feel better tomorrow.

The ford

I make it to the ford. The smoke is not less, but it is not worse either. Alex is here, as are two girls I met on the bus. All three had talked about going over Donahue Pass, but the girls decided to stay on this side of the pass and go over tomorrow. Alex went on ahead. The girls find a terrific dinner spot.

There a lots of tent sites up here. I pick one out.

I must admit, it’s been weird hiking alone again. At times today it was hard to make up my mind about what to do. But that will change and soon I will return to being that chatty guy stopping and taking pictures of everything and wondering what is around the next bend in the trail.

• September 1
• Starting marker: 942.5
• Ending marker: 931.2
• Miles hiked today: 11
• Total PCT miles: 419
• When does a trail become a ditch?