Jammin' with Jameson

21.2 miles. I saw the girls getting up at 5:30 am and promptly went back to sleep. I struggled to get up with the rest of the guys and only got out of my sleeping bag at 6:25 but was out camp by 6:40 – my quickest turnaround yet. We had to do 2 passes – Forrester and Kearsarge – and over 20 miles to get to the trailhead before hitching to Bishop… Aka we had a big day ahead of us. I forgot my phone when I changed into shorts and cursed when I had to walk back to get it. The approach to Forrester was gorgeous Alpine Meadows and lakes aka I was in love. I enjoyed the entire approach after expecting a grueling climb for the highest official point of the PCT at around 13,300 feet. The final ascent seemed easy to me. The little patches of snow weren’t a problem and we met up with the girls shortly after descending the other side. We all split separate ways going downhill to try to hike as fast as we could and I kind of wished that I had some enjoy to share the awe and amazement I had for the valley we were descending into. The pass was the official start of Kings Canyon and I was not disappointed. After lunch, I walked up on Prairie and Brightside fishing a little bit and joined them. Shortly after finishing, we walked up on a ranger checking our permits. Flower Power asked me how the fishing was up there and I immediately freaked out because none of us had gotten wildlife permits. I kept my cool and answered “oh yeah, I did take a big poop up there! It’s the greatest story of how the world shows me it can be a just place sometimes”. I recounted that I had found a battery pack on trail and had just taken a poop with a pre made cathole I found and my first ghost poop of the trail. Immediately after walking again, a guy asked me if I had any extra battery packs for sale and ended up being the owner of the one I picked up. We walked on and let out a deep breathe after finnagling our way out of that situation. Eventually we had to start the uphill to Kearsarge which was really tough. It felt like it took forever but had incredible views the entire way. On the way down, we had 5 miles of over 3000 feet of descent to the trailhead. I shared my music with brightside and played him a ton of the stuff that I knew he’d enjoy with our common music taste and convinced him to get Spotify for easy access to my playlist and the discovery features. Eventually, we all reunited except for weatherman who we hadn’t seen since the morning. It was crazy that we had all been separate for so long and then joined back up just in time for the end of the day. Once we got to the trailhead, we had several offers for rides to Independence which we turned down to hold out for a ride to Bishop. After an hour and a half of no luck and sensing a dwindling number of day hikers, we took whatever we could get and all found separate ways down to the independence gas station. Boogie got a ride from a guy she met going down and reserved the rooms at Hostel California for us. After another few hours, I finally got a ride from a couple that was taking a road trip all the way up to Seattle. They dropped me off at the Mexican restaurant I was meeting everyone at. All prairie had been talking about was having a personal queso so we were bummed when the restaurant told us they didn’t have any. Boogie came to the rescue and walked to the gas station so that we could convince brightside and prairie that they were real (-ly cold) restaurant grade queso dip by the time they got there. With full tummies, we went to the hostel and popped alchemists juicy blister amid some bacterial injection drama. Boogie, Lil Drop, Weatherman, and I shared the intimate full bunk bed suite and fell asleep blissfully to boogies piano playlist.