Hike | Sugarpine & Lingo Hike the PCT

Kennedy Meadows is a small town, with a general store where all the hikers hang out. The Kennedy Meadows General Store allows PCT hikers to camp behind the building for free, and caters to the hikers. This is where everyone sends their resupply packages and bear canisters. Lingo and I each had a box of food and a new pair of shoes to pick up. The store has a large deck with lots of tables, chairs, hiker boxes (where hikers leave items they don’t need for other hikers to have,) and a grill where you can order burgers, sandwiches, etc. The staff at the store was very nice! The store lets you open a tab and pay before you leave. This was extremely convenient but also dangerous since most of us ended up racking up a large tab with trips into the store to buy beer, ice cream, burgers from the grill, more beer, and more ice cream. “Just put it on #55!”

Arranging our bear cans

My shoes

Lingo’s shoes

Lingo, Topo, Hog, Rasberry

Hiker boxes

Hanging around Kennedy Meadows was really fun because we got to hang out with a lot of our friends. We met knew faces, most of which were really nice. A few hikers had a different attitude than the hikers we had been around most of the trip. A hiker stole our friend’s six pack of beer from the cooler one night, and the next day people were jumping the line-up to put their clothes in the dryer. I had heard of some hikers having an “entitled” attitude, but this was one of the first times I really saw it. It was disappointing. Our friend that had their beer stolen was very forgiving and said to me, “It’s okay. This trail’s all about love.” These kind words echoed through my mind the rest of my time spent on trail.

Yummy snacks from a trail angel and her children

Line for the grill!

There is a trail angel named Tom who lives in Kennedy Meadows. He has his place set up with computers and outlets to charge electronics. He has hiker boxes and even a frisbee golf course. It’s known as “Tom’s Place.”

Tom’s Place

One of the great things about hanging around the store was watching Rocket Llama open her package of goodies sent from her dad. He sent her a pack of animals, stick on mustaches, pink hair extensions, and lots of other silly things. I really liked playing with the animals. Rocket and I even hid the animals in our friends’ backpacks for them to find later! Sneaky Rocket tricked ME and hid the gorilla in my pack. The gorilla was snuck from pack to pack the rest of the trail and ended up making it to Canada a few weeks ago!

Rocket slightly disgruntled about how many boxes she received.

Rocket opening her package

Hanging out

Animal’s around the “water hole”

These couple days were spent laughing, eating, and resting our feet. Our German friends Princess and Mr. Sandals had a German film crew meet them for an interview. They had their interview while indulging in much deserved burgers! At night a group of us sat around our tents and confessed our “guilty” items we’ve been hiking with. Items included things like a taser, kite, electric razor, and more. Here we all tried to save weight with light items but then ended up packing extra comfort items that weren’t really a necessity. It was funny!

Princess and Mr. Sandals

None of us had a bottle opener. I guess an ice axe will do!

My burger

We all practiced arranging our backpacks with our bear cans (which take up basically the whole pack!) Our friend Estero gave us tips and tricks to get everything to fit. He advised us to put our sleeping bag in the bottom of our pack, then our bear can, and stuff all of our clothes around the bear can. I practiced a few times before bed. We all hiked out the next morning as a group.