My first day in the Sierra’s was characterized by beautiful, green scenery and knee and hip pain from carrying my now very heavy backpack. The bear canister, microspikes and 6+ days of food had added a lot of weight. I was worried about the pain in my knee but that luckily disappeared after a couple of hours. We had lunch at the first river we had to cross. Such a difference with the desert! Instead of arid, sandy landscapes, we saw birds fly above the river and green, lush vegetation as far as the eye could see. I dipped in the river and took a little nap. Solemate and Jesse’s group arrived a little bit later as well. This felt nice.
One thing I did not anticipate: the hunger. I thought I knew what hiker hunger was, but this tops everything that came before. I could keep eating and eating. According to my calculations, I was way over 3000 calories by the end of the day. I even finished the leftovers from Mouse and Half ‘n Half and got a cookie from Spice.
I feel really tired, way more than on regular days. Stinger says it’s because of the elevation. And it makes sense, we’ll be hovering between 10 and 14 thousand feet (3000 and 4260 meters) the coming weeks. Hopefully I get used to it fast. From now on, I’m also on the lookout for bears.
Andy and Beetle are also now full time members of our trail family, setting our count at 14, which is a giant group of people here. We’ve taken to calling ourselves the snowballs, since we absorb anyone in our path. Surely it can’t last before it becomes impractical, but for now, this is a great group of people.