I ended up taking two days off at the gigantic lakes. But, the story to get there is probably worth sharing. I got into Red’s Meadow around 6:30 pm three days ago. Four days passed after the road would open. Unfortunately, when I got there, the Red Prado was a ghost town. There were no cars, no people or anything. It is curious, because there were some hikers ahead of me also plan to go to Red’s to travel to the gigantic lakes. I don’t know where they ended. With irregular cellular coverage, and without knowledge of the area, I decided that I would walk from Red’s Meadow to Mammoth.
It turns out that it was a very long walk. However, after walking for about 10 minutes, a car arrived. I put my thumb and asked me what was happening. I explained my situation and told me that they were local and that they could take me in half. While they argued the best place to leave me, one of them remembered a path called Starkweather Trail. It is a 2 -mile path, all uphill that lets go right in the place where the Red Prado road is closed. I controlled the path, surprisingly fast, and took the city.
Today I started from Horseshoe Lake. The path that I intended to take would make me come on Mammoth Pass hitting the PCT, and repeats 3 miles of the PCT when I returned to the Prado de Red. It is a fairly extensive path system here, and a wrong turn later, and ended exactly in the network meadow, where I immediately turned north on the PCT.
The long story is that I am back on the road. It’s noon, and I’m 18 miles from Donahue’s pass. As my herd is so full, I was discussing two days and reviewing Donahue’s pass the day after tomorrow. Now, however, I am in a land of no mans. My package is full and heavy, but I don’t feel like walking a great day, but it makes sense to get closer as much as possible, and go through Donahue Pass in the morning. I will take it easy, try not to walk too late and see if I can prepare to not overcome the pass too late tomorrow. I am arriving at the Sierra stage where soon, the passes will not dictate my mileage for the day, and I am looking forward to that.
In the gigantic lakes, I replaced a broken bag, CNOC, completely supplied in food for the walk to Kennedy Meadows North, and washed all my clothes. When I got on the way this morning, I realize that I forgot to buy fuel once more. Surely I have a couple of days of fuel, and I don’t care about the cold, soaking my dry meals, so it is not a big problem. Ideally, the general store in Tuolumne Meadows will be open, and I can buy fuel there, but I don’t think it opens up to the end of this month. That is not a problem for today, so I will worry more tomorrow or the next day.
I did not start too late today, around 8:45 am. However, apart from one day hikers in the parking lot in Horseshoe Lake, I have not seen anyone all day. I know they are here, and I will meet them soon. Once again, I appreciate the opportunity to be alone with my thoughts.
A common trend for me on this path is that it is difficult to get out of zero with a heavy package. I’m dragging a little. I am ready to configure the camp. I was going to try to push Donahue a little more, but I briefly had a cell signal and downloaded new distant comments. A poster said yesterday that Donahue hardly had snow along the way and only a few snowfields on the road down, and it was «quite cold.»
Then, I will stop at the next camp that I find, and just deal with those two play passes tomorrow.
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