Day 56 Mile 891.7 – 895.7 (plus 10.8 miles from PCT to Mammoth)

Elevation: ascent 1,470 ft, descent 3,669 ft

Thank goodness last night wasn’t quite as cold. Don’t get me wrong it was still freezing but less wind and a fairly sheltered tent site made for a more comfortable night sleep. I got up in the middle of the night to water some trees and figured it was a good time to try taking the starry night sky picture I had been talking about doing. Well with almost a full moon the picture came out a lot brighter and I wasn’t in the mood to mess around with camera settings when I could be warm under a down quilt. I will still have to keep messing around with that.

Double Down and I were up at 5:45 with the prospect of pizza calling out to us. We were heading into Mammoth today to resupply and take a few days to be with our kids since we won’t see them until we finish this crazy adventure. We only had 4 actual miles on the PCT but were planning on walking about 15 total miles today.

Virginia Lake

We said goodbye to Virginia Lake, which was spectacular! We then got to Purple Lake for breakfast and to top off water we would need for the day. Before long we arrived at the Duck Pass trail junction. We had originally planned on getting off the trail at Reds Meadow but not having the road to there open, put that plan to rest. We have a few friends of ours that want to join us for a day, so we came up with the plan of exiting Duck Pass.

Purple Lake
Cascade Valley
Duck Lake
Duck Lake
Duck Lake
Barney Lake
Skeleton Lake

This area is very pretty with a bunch of lakes making it an easy walk out! The only issue is that the road up to this area is closed to cars, which meant we had a long road walk in front of us. When we reached the trailhead we had to walk all the way to Twin Lakes before we would see any cars. This meant walking on a paved road for 3 miles. Wow, our feet and legs are not use to asphalt, as that walk down caused a lot of soreness. When we reached Twin Lakes we couldn’t find anyone leaving so getting a hitch the last 2 miles was out of the question. With the COVID virus we weren’t able to find an Uber or Lyft either. So we had no other choice than to walk the last two miles to our destination.

I’m sure I looked very funny walking along next to Double Down on my phone trying to figure out a way to order a pizza so it would arrive to the house right as we got there. Reading menus while walking was a challenge. We opted for the easy choice and just went with Domino’s. Well we had impeccable timing because that pizza arrived about 10 minutes from us walking in the door. We would have gotten a picture of the feast but hands were too full of food to pick up a camera.

Well the next few days will be filled with hanging out with our kids, eating, drinking and a lot of relaxing.

Please stay safe and thanks for following. Link