Saturday June 23rd: I didn't leave Kennedy Meadows until after 9am and I sure as hell wasn't moving very quickly when I did. My pack was full to the brim with 8 days of food (heavy on the food for each day at that), a bear canister, a wind shell that I just had sent to me, and two liters of water. With all the new gear and the mandatory bear canister my pack weighed 40 pounds!! I drank a liter right away to bring it down two pounds but it didn't feel much lighter. Normally my pack weighs in somewhere around 27-28 pounds so it was a challenge for sure! I've been trying to eat the food up quickly, however, I need to remember to save enough to last me the next 7 days. All in all today was slow going. Todays miles = 17.
There is a woman in the trail named "Listener" and she has been the biggest inspiration to me on this trail so far. She is 74 years old, out here by herself, and does her best to keep up enough miles to be able to finish the trail. She is soft spoken and doesn't seem to speak unless she really has something to say. Just she, as she is, is inspiring. She weighs probably 105 pounds and lugs around a pack running close to 30-35 pounds. She never complains. She hikes what she can and I'm damn sure shes pushing herself out her more than anyone else I've met. She is the kindest woman also which is a bonus to her sheer awesomeness! Everytime I see her I realize there is no complaint I could make that she could not top and that keeps my mount shut. I have the pleasure of camping with this woman tonight. She wasn't sure if she was going to make it to the camp we were going to tonight and Baboon and I were really rooting for her. So much so that Baboon sped ahead so he could get to the camp first and start a fire in hopes that the sight or smell of it would give her the last push she needed to get to camp. Upon arriving at camp she said she could see the fire from a ways back and it was then that she knew she could make it!
Tonight is our first night with our bear canisters and most of us our still sleeping with our food. Protocol for the canisters is to put ALL your food in them (although, nobody's food will fit) and place them some 200 yards from where you are camping. Only one person out of us 5 did that. That was the person that got their food played with by a bear tonight. It was around an hour after we went to bed when I heard what sounded like a hungry bear throwing around a bear can. After a while it gave up on getting the food and went about its business elsewhere. It never came overly close to any of our tents that had the bear cans and extra food in them. Although, the sound of the bear raised my nerves quite a bit. I tired to wake Monkey up by saying his name. I got a mumbled "Spins" in return before I could hear him rolling back over in his tent and immediately falling back to sleep. It took me a while to fall back asleep...
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