As we entered the national parks in the Sierras (Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite) the importance of proper food storage became even more important. More visitors to parks, more food, more possible interactions itch bears or other wildlife. You DONT want an animal getting at your food! Not only will you have nothing to eat (the horror!) but the animals will become acclimated to eating human food, more likely to attack humans, and then may have to be destroyed by the Rangers. No park ranger wants to kill a bear!

And that's why there are the bear canisters. Bear canisters are hard containers that bears and mice and marmots are unable to get into. There are other options- I've been carrying an URsack, an animal proof bag that can be punctured but not ripped open. You have to tie it a special way to make sure the animals can't open it. But the URsack is not approved for use in some parts of Sequioia and Kings Canyon or any of Yosemite. So a bear canister is needed.

Here's the deal- they're bulky. And awkward. And a little heavy. Everyone hates them. I mean, we don't want the Bears to get killed. But we don't like the bear canisters.

When you are backpacking, you do not CARRY a backpack. You WEAR a backpack. You need a pack that fits you well, accommodates your waist size, torso length, shoulder width. Something that is adjustable to your inevitable weight loss. And you need to experiment to figure out the best way to pack your gear do that the weight of your pack is distributed in a similar way to your body's weight distribution. That way, your pack molds to you, moves with you, almost becomes part of you.

A bear canister does not mold to you. A bear canister takes up room in your pack and leaves weird empty spaces. A bear canister does not move with you, but shifts as a unit, making your pack swat. With a bear box, you do not WEAR a backpack, you CARRY it.

Which is why I made the decision in Lone Pine to mail my bear canister ahead and use it only in Yosemite. There were bear lockers in the campsites where the canisters were required, and I'd just make sure to camp where there were lockers. That way, I wouldn't be climbing over 12 and 13,000 foot passes while CARRYING a backpack, but instead while WEARING one. It may seem like a subtle difference, but above 10,000 feet, it can be huge!

June 7: After a couple days of rest and recoup, it was time to hit the trail again. We had run into Nomad Max the day before in Lone Pine and he had offered us an early morning ride up to Horseshoe Meadows to hike. So at 7 am, One of Us, Catlady (another AT 2013 hiker- man, we are OWNING the PCT this year!), and I jumped in the car and headed out.

The big question for this section was- Mt Whitney, yes or no? My Whitney is the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states (Denali is higher, of course) and to summit Whitney is only 17 miles round trip from the PCT. Plus, the permits to summit are hard to come by, but are sort of included in a PCT permit. So it makes a lot of sense to go for it.

On the other hand, I still didn't feel great and I also had Forester Pass to conquer- 10 miles after Whitney. I wasn't sure if u had it in me to do both back to back.

In the end, I thought about my big motivating factor to do Whitney now- a line from one of the guidebooks to be sure NOT to miss Whitney because "you may never have the opportunity to do it again". Why? Why would I never have the opportunity to do it again? Is the mountain going somewhere? Does it have plans to vacation on Mars or Venus? Of course I'll have another opportunity! I'll save Whitney for another day.

My decision was confirmed when I descended into Crabtree Meadows, where the trail to Mt Whitney turns off. It was cold and wet and rainy with patches of wet snow. Everyone looked cold and tired and frankly, quite miserable. I ran into Shutterbug and his girlfriend who had attempted to summit , but turned back when it got too cold and snowy. Others reported that "the morning was spectacular, before the snowstorm hit". And just about everyone said they were gonna zero in their tent the next day.

I had had enough from the hail I encountered when entering Kings Canyon at 11,000 feet. I decided to hang out with Shutterbug for a while and then press on to the campground with the bear box.

I got into the campground just after 7, with just enough daylight to set up, get water, and cook/eat dinner. A nice, respectable 24 mile day!

Peace, love, and trail magic

June 5-6: lone Pine is a small town in the eastern Sierras, famous for being the setting for most of the westerns filmed from the 20's through the 60's. All the restaurants in town have glossies of John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and Clint Eastwood. I stayed in a hotel that has been built specifically to house film crews. But hey, I could've stayed in a hotel built to house space aliens, so long as I had a shower, a toilet, and a bed. Cause that's what I rotated between for the next 24 or so hours. So good to sleep for 14 hours!

When I finally ventured outside, I ran into Beer Goddess, One of Us, and Purple Princess. We ate in restaurants together, used the Internet at the library, went to the laundromat - all he hiker in town things you gotta do. And when the weather report called for storms on the mountains, decided together to stay one more day on Lone Pine.

For an unexpected stop along the way, Lone Pine ended up being very good to me!

And look- I ran into Mama Goose