Day 79

Trail miles: 16.6

Total: 1016.9

Woke up early because it’s town day! Well sort of a town. Kennedy Meadows Resort. We tried to create a slow poke starting time, but some of the boys decided to start with us. So now the slow poke group is now a secret society with which you have to be initiated by having someone wait for you for more than 30 minutes. I knew there would be snow on Senora Pass, but what we got was way worse. First it was the hill. We took the alternate route someone created in the rocks that basically went straight up. The switchbacks were apparently very sketchy with all the snow. Then we reached one of the summits and the wind hit us with so much force that even the larger men were getting knocked around. It went of like this for miles. I had to put my buff over my mouth to help me breathe since the wind kept taking my breath away. We got to what I thought might be the only snow patch, but man was I wrong. I used my spikes and axe for the first traverse and took them off thinking that was it. As soon as we rounded the corner though we saw more. It went ok the whole was down to the road, which was like 6 miles. It was slow and the snow was very slushy. The worst part was that the wind was still in full force. You’d be walking along a dangerous traverse and the wind would make you hit the deck just to keep from falling. I should have just kept my spikes on the whole time, but I thought I could handle it. In fairness, I did, but I lost my sanity doing so. The trail didn’t even match up with the footprints, so we kept having to rock scramble a lot. We made it to the road by 1:30 and Cool Beans and I were in a hitch by 2:00. The resort was basically a big campground with some yurts and a lot of cabins. There was a bar (which I never got around to exploring), a little store, and a restaurant. The camping package included Wi-Fi, a shower, laundry, and a hitch back to the trailhead for $40. The food was pretty bad, but the resupply was great. I got a new stove since mine broke. The it was all fun and games for the rest of the night. Lots of beers of course to celebrate the crazy hike. And Big Owl made it in! She pushed to town because of the wind.