June 11

Great day of hiking

Slept in a bit and had left-over pizza and farmer's market blueberries and strawberries for b'fast. Then Chris, the trail angel who had helped us out yesterday, gave us a ride back to the trailhead. Yet another chance to be thankful to someone so willing to drop what they're doing and help a couple of perfect strangers. Hiked w/ Flip Flop all day. Long steady climb up Baden-Powell, a big Boy Scout pilgrimage apparently given his relationship with the organization. You knew it was the weekend as there lots of day hikers (really big hiking club group of Koreans) and boy scout backpackers.

Really cool moment during the climb up. Looked up the trail to see a raven riding the wind but it was right over trail, just before a switchback at an overlook, as if it was just floating there in space 3-4 feet above the trail. One of those magically surreal experiences.

Lots of patches of snow, a couple substantial enough to give us trouble finding the trail as it switched back and forth up to the summit. Kinda fun to think about it being a taste of what we'll have to deal with in the Sierra, however minute I'm sure it was in comparison.

There was a group of boy scouts on the summit, but we managed to find a spot to ourselves for lunch. Unfortunately FF (Flip Flop) still didn't have much of an appetite and struggled to figure out what he'd feel up to eating, really mostly spending the time just taking a break while I ate.

The rest of the day was spent ridgewalking in the trees with near constant great views and a nice cool breeze despite the sun. But even when things got a little bit hot we scooped snow and stuck it under our hats or down our backs. Aside from some initial brain freeze it was awesome :) Also scooped some up into our water bottles for some nice cold water.

Stopped for dinner at a spring and were visited by three boy scouts while we cooked who were camped out nearby and were getting water. The older scout (14?) was really impressed when we told him what we were doing and decided to make a video to post on youtube so Flip Flop and I are famous now lol :) Hopefully they'll send it to FF and he'll get it to me so I can post on here at some point.

First try at pistachio pudding as recommended by Ant Hoohoo and it was YUM. I'll definitely throw that into my dinner plans again sometime :) Glad we ate at the spring b/c the camp was flooded with scouts! Looked like a little tent city!

Really struggled to decide on which detour to take that evening. There is a section of trail which is currently closed to protect an endangered frog and there are two detour options. The original involves a bit of road walking on a highway whereas the current official detour adds ten miles and includes a subsantial descent and then climb back up. I'd been planning on the official route as Foxtrot (hiker friend from my '05 AT hike) recommended it as being very scenic and worthwhile despite the extra miles. But I was wanting to take it easy on a blister and we got to the beginning of the detour late in the evening which could've meant descending about half the detour in the dark before reaching a camping area, potentially undermining the scenic argument for it. After much deliberation, I decided to join Flip Flop and finish what had been a great day of hiking together.

Ended up being a great call as we ended up catching the best sunset of the trip up to that point and had someone to share it with for once.

After descending in the fading light we decided to knock out the road walk part of the detour tonight. There wasn't much traffic at all, we'd see the oncoming traffic early, they'd easily see us with our headlamps, we'd complete it in the much cooler nighttime temps, and there was a campground at the end with water.

It was a good idea and we were glad to be done with it but man was I beat. Heck of a long day for a late start. Awesome day but don't think I want to finish up too many more days at 12am!


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Location:Burkhart Trail (endangered species detour)