7/2, Vidette Meadow to Independence/Bishop (via Kearsarge), mile 790+9 miles to town
Aaron Doss
We left early to make sure we would arrive at the trailhead early.
This would increase our chances for a hitch.
Back at the Deep creek bridge (hundreds of miles ago) Nasser proposed
a trail name for Nathalie, she was sleeping on the bridge after eating
lunch. Nasser proposed 'Napalie' for her ability to take a nap
anywhere. 'Super Hitch' is another trail name recently proposed.
Today we would figure out what trailname she would go by. We we get
to the trailhead, if she got a hitch in 15 minutes, then she would go
by 'Super Hitch' otherwise she would be 'Napalie'.
The trail quickly climbed out of the meadow and up to the Kearsarge
pass junction. We passed by Bullfrog lake and continued up the very
scenic trail to Kearsarge pass. Lots of day hikers were coming up,
the smelled 'clean', how unusual. We were very nice to everyone so
that we could possibly get a ride with them when they came back down.
The trail from the pass to Onion Valley trailhead was 5 miles long, we
did it in 1 hour 20 minutes. We arrived around 1pm there were no
hikers coming down yet. Nathalie tried but didn't get us a hitch to
Bishop with the few people there. After almost an hour we and got a
hitch into Independence with a bunch of guys who were planning to
climb Whitney. They were up at Onion Valley to acclimatize for the
day. They dropped us off and we immediately got another hitch to
Bishop (45 miles north). Bishop is a much larger town and a better
resupply.
Unfortunately for us it's the Independence day weekend and all the
hotels jacked up their prices to $100+ dollars. We managed to talk
the Comfort Inn down from $110 to $90. It was near the grocery store
and a restaurant with an all you can eat salad bar (Sizzler). We
washed our clothes, zoned out on TV (eww..). After our clothes were
dry we went directly to the Sizzler. It was hiker paradise, a huge
salad bar plus extras like a taco/pasta bar and an ice cream machine.
We each ordered 1/2 pound chese burgers and the salad bar. We ate and
ate and then ate some more, after almost an hour we started on ice
cream. Skipping the small provided cups I went to the soup bar
grabbed a soup bowl. Zack and Squatch followed my example. After two
big bowls of ice cream each it was getting brutal. Our guts ached,
only Nathalie stopped eating before pain set in.
We left the Sizzler and went directly to our hotel rooms. We needed
to let the food settle. We also needed to go grocery shopping still.
After an hour or so we left to check out the Vons (grocery store). it
was around 9pm and the local kids were cruizing the streets in their
Civics.
For some reason we had no energy to shop. We ended up walking around
the store checking out all the things we could buy, formulating trail
meals in our heads. We decided that would shop tomorrow morning for
food and went back to our hotel to sleep.
So Nathalie's trail name is now Napalie.
Aaron and Napalie