Pacific Crest Trail - Day 65 - Farewell, Desert

Start: Mile 682.3 - Chimney Creek campground
End: Mile 703.4 - Kennedy Meadows

Climbing up the canyon above Chimney Creek well rested and aiming for Kennedy Meadows 21 miles away.

Is that … snow?!

They’re just rocks. Nothing to see here.

Enjoying the last few miles of the blooming Southern California desert.

So close you can almost taste the Sierra. That’s definitely granite.

Writing this with hindsight, the West is funny - just another little rockslide represents colors of rock that we won’t see again for hundreds of miles.

A leopard print lizard. It’s amazing how incredibly divergent species converge on similar adaptations. Nature is lit. I think there might be a few things we can learn from it.

Looking ahead to the North.

Looking back to the South down the Kern River canyon.

Toto, we’re not in the desert anymore.

nice

These rocks looked like a fish cut into pieces. Or maybe I’m ready for real-world food.

Yellow, orange, and red flowers!

E.T. going home in a rock shopping cart.

The Kern River - more water in 20 seconds than we’ve seen across the last 700 miles.

700! 700? 700‽

We met Juicebomb and Function at the first of half a dozen 700 mile markers. Juicebomb and Kristin grew up 10 miles apart in Ontario and apparently hike n’sync eh?

This wood sculpture evoked the Fearless Girl sculpture on Wall Street. I have given, and will continue to give Cheryl Strayed (and similarly, Bill Bryson) a hard time about dodging the hardest parts of this trail while taking credit for it as a whole, but I’ll never fault her for writing about her experience or inspiring tens of thousands of young women (and people in general) to challenge themselves by backpacking in the wilderness.

After 700 miles from 1,200’ to 9,500’ in elevation through every weather condition and environment besides rainforest, tundra, and arctic, Kristin (and myself, I suppose) is ready for anything ahead.

The view a few steps before hearing cheers and a ringing cowbell from the patio of the Kennedy Meadows General Store. It was a surprisingly emotional moment being cheered on for hiking 700 something miles through the desert by a group of people who know exactly how challenging hiking 700 miles through the desert is.