OK, finally, the last day of seven. After this, those of you still with this can stop reading these damn, interminable trip reports (at least for a while).
First the humor. Tricia is a fairly bright little girl. She also owns a purple pair of rubber/plastic shoes that she wears in camp a lot. These shoes are of a popular type called "Crocs."
This year the fad/trend among PCT through-hikers is to use a brand of gaiters called "Dirty Girl" gaiters. They're made by a small (one woman?) company and they come in screaming bright colors. The girls both thought these were totally cool. Of course, on the PCT gaiters are helpful to keep rocks and dirt out of the shoes and off the legs (as opposed to keeping snow off, which is what I've always heard of them for).
One day this trip, when the girls were doing well, I told them that, as soon as we got within range of the internet, I'd order for them each any pair of Dirty Girl gaiters they wanted. This thrilled them. Two minutes later Tricia was even more thrilled when she realized: "Daddy, that means I'm going to have both gaiters and Crocs."
Where the hell does she come up with this stuff?
So our last day was really fine. From what I could see of where we'd be hiking, I started getting excited the day before. We continued down the canyon we had been in all the way to the Kern Plateau, and then up the South Fork Kern River to and through Kennedy Meadows. The real Sierra Nevada.
The trail can barely be seen here on the left wall of the canyon (yes left); the Kern Plateau can be seen below, as can some of Domelands Wilderness:
This is the same canyon, showing more detail, and one of the prominent domes:
Once down this canyon we could see huge distances up and down the main (South Fork Kern River) canyon. The views were spectacular in spite of the extensive burning:
I was glad to have the old Southern Sierra Domelands climbing guidebook along, just to help identify some of what I was looking at.
We continued north, sometimes along the river, stopping for lunch alongside it:
After several pretty miles, we hiked into Kennedy Meadows. PCT through-hikers consider this the "true" start of the Sierra Nevada. Although geologically this is incorrect, it is easy to see why this is considered such a transitional point:
Soon we saw Vicki parked along the river waiting for us:
We met up with her, but carried on for 2.4 miles more, to the north end of Kennedy Meadows Campground, a natural starting point for a next trip:
Thus we finished 101 more miles on the PCT in seven days hiking. We're past one quarter of the way; we've walked every step of 702 miles from the Mexican border. Oh, and we're still having fun.
And that may or may not be it for a while. The next logical portion to hike will require just under 50 continuous miles to Horseshoe Meadow (and past there it's 200 miles, plus or minus, to Tuolumne Meadows, with no pickup point). We may backpack this in July of this year, on our way to a family vacation at Disneyland. Or, we may wait and hike to Horseshoe Meadow in June 2012, using it as a training hike for the big, many, many day trip we'll do into the core of the Sierra in July or August of next year.
