Day 3. Monday June 22, 2009. Mileage: 732 – 745.6 (13.6 PCT miles plus 2.5 to get hitch)

Climbing out of Death Canyon in the morning provided views of the Sierras that gave us a sort of giddy high. We could see that we were headed for snow but the excitement of it all overpowered any snow anxieties. (We also thought we could see Mt Whitney and took a series of ‘There it is!’ pictures of what we later learned was just a very tall mountain and not the tallest in 48 states).

Every view that I capture at the end of each blink is different than the image before. The scenery here alters drastically during the mileage covered within a day; we walk through dry, pebbly sand with views of snow in the distance. I’ve never seen anything like it before. The huge and mysterious boulder formations shape the uneven expanse into a kind of maze reminiscent of a dinosaur land. The sun switches quickly from friend to foe as it warms my numb, fumbling hands at sunrise and later hangs like a fire in the air. All of this lends to an exciting sense of this area’s intensity and unpredictability.

We crossed paths with a thru hiker named Buddy several times today. Though I felt slow all day, we made awesome time. Because we covered more miles a day than expected, we hitchhiked into Lone Pine a day or two early. To get into the town of Lone Pine, we walked about 2.5 miles off trail to Horseshoe Meadows trailhead. Jess, a thru hiker named Splash, and I got a ride with a man who had been horseback riding on the PCT. We rode in the back of his truck along the edge of terrifying and massive cliffs that reminded me of the greatness with which Jack Kerouac described Big Sur. It was the wildest ride of my life.

Jess gave me the trail name Replay today for verbalizing observations that she makes seconds earlier in what becomes a bizarre repetitive conversation. My defense is twofold: 1) Social constructivism – When Jess says “I see another hiker ahead”, I hear just that. Jess sees another hiker; I don’t think there *is* another hiker until I see the hiker myself. 2) Hiker brain – It is too beautiful out here to focus.