Posted 6/27/14
What a stay! We escaped the hiker vortex, Kennedy Meadows, but got to indulge just enough while we were there. So far on this trip we haven't run into a lot of other hikers and our interactions with those we have met have been fleeting. At KM we finally got to meet and socialize with all the other people that are around us on the trail. As it turns out there are lots of people that started where we did and skipped the desert so we aren't the only ones jumping on late.
It was interesting coming into the social scene. We felt like a pair of outsiders since everyone else seemed to know each other and all had cool trail names! It felt almost like being in high school when you don't belong to a clique :( To hide the fact that we were trail newbies and avoid any ill-fitting nicknames, we decided to give each other trail names. Receiving your thru-hiking trail name is a big deal in the PCT community; like a right of passage. Normally you have to hike several hundered miles before people get to know you well enough to earn your new title. But since we just started and didn't know anyone we thought it would be easier to come up with our own. Thus Chappy (Mike) and Two-Step (Erin) were born! No one seems to have noticed that we made our own names so long as we have a short anecdote for how we got them and we have seemlessly blended into the social network. We've met a lot of interesting and fun people: we hope to see more of the worldly travelers Hobo & Milkshake; the badass Two-Feathers solo hiker from South Africa; the Jolly Lama; and Dances with Bacon.
It's easy to see why hikers have a hard time leaving KM. They have a large outdoor patio with 10-25 thru hikers drinking beers, watching the World Cup, eating burgers, and playing games. They had outlets available to charge your electronics, showers for 3$, laundry for 3$, a port-a-potty (with toilet paper and hand sanitizer!!!), and FREE camping in their yard! KM is basically a big party for thru hikers to go and be merry!
We mingled and got our jollies in over our 24 hour stay and took off the next afternoon. We were able to get a good 7-8 miles out of KM which was enough distance to feel removed from the party. We weren't the only ones to leave that day and we ended up camping with other hikers for the first time. It was nice to have a small circle of people to interact with and get to know better as opposed to a large group of people. Though the conversations are similar (e.g. where you're from, why are you doing the PCT, what does your trail name mean, etc.) you still feel like you get to know people better out in the woods.
We were the first to arrive at the campsite and we stumbled upon a 2-foot long King snake! The catchy rhyme to distinguish between King (non-venemous) and Coral (venemous) snakes came in handy:
"Red touches yellow, kills a fellow. Red touches black, you're ok jack!"
We warned the other campers about it when they arrived but nobody seemed to mind. Storyteller actually got really close to it to take pictures! I was still pretty scared to sleep there so we opted to put up the mesh enclosure underneath the tarp. Worry-free night of sleep! The wind was still roaring though, so even though our slithery friend didn't cost us any sleep, our tent collapsing in the wind did :(
P.S. Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post. We still have to get in the habit of taking pics with our phones to upload, not just the camera!
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