Day 39: The Pool People

With Lucky Charm in tow, Mash and I continued our advance into Kennedy Meadows. We took a break at the first water source to have a second breakfast. Then, something happened. From around the corner, another hiker arrived. Quite uneventful, were it not for the pool noodle sticking out of his backpack. I didn’t realize fully what was there and the hiker passed.

Two more showed, these with pool noodles adorning their poles and life vests on. Was this some weird cult of the Holy Pool Noodle? No, the answer was more simple. ‘Because fuck the desert!’ was the reply when we asked what was going on. The idea was to celebrate the end of the desert section and with it, the end of long water carries. Once the pool people (as they were quickly dubbed) arrived in Kennedy Meadows, they would get squirt guns and other pool stuff and party. More of them showed up, a beautiful oddity, brightening our day. Mash was intrigued by them and wanted to talk, but we didn’t get the chance. They seemed like the right sort of people.

We cruised through 17 miles by noon. At that point, we passed by some potential trail magic. Since Lucky Charm, known to manifest trail magic, was with us, we thought nothing could go wrong. And it was there, a big table with sodas, beers, fruit and snacks. Among the crowd gathered, sat Guardian, which made me happy. We’d just missed the hot dogs, but No Hawk, the host, assured us there would be steak if we stayed for dinner and camped there. It was only noon however, meaning we would have to sit there half a day, so we politely declined, even though No Hawk insisted on us staying. The pool people will join him, we were certain.

After our break, we left. No Hawk tried to convince us one last time, to no avail. I genuinely felt bad then, No Hawk seemed to be sad that we went away. Mash and Lucky Charm are vegetarians and I had just gone through an entire bag of beef jerky, so we weren’t the guests he was looking for. Maybe the rest of our group, only 7 miles behind, made it there that night.

The pool people were camped a couple miles further out, meaning they wouldn’t join No Hawk either. I wonder what it is that trail angels get out of these sort of events. Is it the company? The fact that they can relive their own trail days through us? I haven’t figured it out.

This was the last full day of desert. Only 13 miles separate us from Kennedy Meadows. We’ll try to get there before noon.