I randomly texted my friend Sienna the day before and found out she was back in the Eastern Sierra. She had moved into her van earlier that year, and had been splitting time between the Eastern Sierra and Moab. We planned to camp out in Onion Valley and try for Independence Peak the next morning.
I resupplied at Grocery Outlet in Bishop, and hitched down to Independence. I was sitting in the Cottonwood trees of the park there waiting for her to get off work, and then she picked me up and we drove up to Onion Valley. It was good to catch up and hear about her adventures climbing and vandwelling in Moab.
We had each brought a bit of extra food with us in case we ran into PCT hikers. As we got up there in the early evening, we ran into a whole group of PCT hikers. We dished out fruit and bagged salads, and Sienna cooked up some delicious food in her van. As luck would have it, one of the hikers happened to be my friend from college Ben’s brother Luke. Neither of us had ever met, but I recognized him from his New Zealand accent. We all spent a great night together sitting in the asphalt next to Sienna’s van telling stories and laughing. Being in the presence of so many other hikers made me very excited for the CDT.
The next morning Sienna and I got up at six and climbed Independence Peak. It was a short hike, and fairly trivial except for a short ridge just below the summit. Even the ridge didn’t give us much pause, and soon we were on the summit, soaking in the views of the peaks and valleys that surrounded us. The descent went quickly, and soon Sienna and I were saying our goodbyes in the parking lot. A British couple who had just gotten engaged atop Mt. Whitney hiked in at the perfect time and gratefully accepted Sienna’s offer for a ride to Bishop.
I would be staying out here for the next few days though, trying to taper for a big four peak link up later that week. I brought a few books with me, and relaxed by the creek for the rest of the day.
The following day, I climbed Kearsarge Peak, which was similarly uneventful, but just as beautiful. I had one more hike planned on the third day with Rick whom I had met in El Chalten. He was in his early seventies, but still chipping away at the SPS list. The clouds were uncharacteristically gray for a summer morning in the Sierra. We started hiking anyway, but were eventually turned around by the worsening weather.
As we got back to the parking lot, we found another big group of PCT hikers waiting for a ride, and we crammed six of us into Rick’s pickup truck. Just as we were about to leave, I ran into a hiker Machine who I had met in Pennsylvania along the AT. He screamed, “Mugwort” and we had a brief reunion. The PCT provides, even six years later!
Soon Rick dropped us all of in the heat of Bishop, and our stormy adventure in the mountains that morning was a distant dream. In a haze I hung out with the other hikers outside the Mountain Rambler, but didn’t buy anything on their expensive menu. They all had vastly different styles of hiking, some of them ultralight and one of them bragging about his 50 lb baseweight. Eventually we moved to the park, and they one by one went off to hotels and hostels. I snuck off into the Sagebrush, and tried to get one last good night of sleep before meeting Caleb the next day to drive out toward Birch Mtn. and attempt a four peak linkup.
Anthony Ottati 