Day 38

Kennedy Meadows South to mile 723.0

PCT Miles: 19.6 (31.4km)

Total Miles: 723.0 (1156.8km)

The day cannot start wrong if it starts with all you can eat pancakes 🥞! At 8, I was (almost) fully packed and eating my breakfast. It was a challenge to reorganize things so I can fit the crampons, ice axe and specially the bear canister into my backpack. It was also a challenge to fit my food into the bear canister.

Starting today and for the rest of the Sierra Nevada, it’s mandatory to carry a bear canister, which is a big bear-proof container 🫙. There are two main disadvantages of carrying the bear canister. First, it’s heavy: 1.13kg. Second, it limits the amount of food you can carry. In theory, you should also put on the bear canister scented things like toothpaste or even sunscreen. I forgot to take a picture to show to you how mine looks like. I will do tomorrow (if I remember 😅).

After breakfast (prepared by the mega-friendly Huckleberry), I was ready to go! I said my goodbyes to the other hikers, put my backpack 🎒 on, buckled the hip belt and… the hip belt buckle snaps in two. It’s broken and it’s very visible that there’s no way to fix the buckle.

I’m in the middle of nowhere and I need a new very-specific buckle to repair my backpack. For a moment I think about going without the buckle (and therefore not being able to use the hip belt), but I remembered the mantra “make wise decisions” and carrying 15kg on your shoulders only is definitely not wise. The solution would be to order a new buckle online… I was already preparing myself mentally to have a few zeros until the new buckle arrives.

I went to the general store and they even have a buckle, but it’s too small, it not even half of the width of the strap. Then I went to the hiker box (a hiker box is a big box where hikers leave what they don’t want or need anymore, so other hikers can use) and there was a big old backpack there! The backpack itself couldn’t be used, but I could remove the hip belt buckle! Believe or not, somebody had this idea before: there were no buckles anymore.

My last resort was to check with Charlie Brown if he had the buckle. He didn’t have any on his shop, but he said that he was about to receive a box with some spare parts. Maybe later today or tomorrow that box would arrive and maybe there could be a hip belt buckle there. A lot of maybes.

He went to the general store to check for his mail and for his surprise (and mine) his box had just arrived this morning. I couldn’t believe my eyes when he shows me the one hip belt buckle that came in the box!

Forty minutes later, after Charlie Brown stitched 🪡 the new buckle (and refuse to receive any payment for that) I was ready to go! I put my backpack on, buckle my hip belt and… everything is perfect 🤩!

I started hiking at 11:30 and hiked almost non-stop until 19, after almost 20 miles. There was already a lot of altitude change today (mostly uphill) and I’m sleeping at almost 10.000 feet of altitude. The wind is becoming colder and colder (in contrast with the warm wind from the desert) and I saw already a few snow patches. I’m clearly entering the Sierra 😬.