September 29

Distance: 12.1

Mile marker: 1751.4

Lunch: J&A – birthday cake (A+)

Dinner: J&A – burritos (A+)

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The lake we passed early in the chilly morning was foggy. Our footsteps woke some ducks tucked into the grasses at the edge of the lake. We watched them for a few minutes as they floated out of the grass, stretched, bathed, and then began diving for breakfast. We think they were some kind of teal.

The ground around us as we watched the ducks was frosty. This is the first true sign of fall. Hopefully, not an ominous sign of cold weather to come.

A waterfall fed the lake. There was a cool hole behind the waterfall that looked like a giant eye. Maybe, the hole is where all the cool and rebellious teenage ducks hang out.

Alex was stoked about the new triangular pinecones. The most conical pinecones? We don’t know what tree it came from.

As we got to the trailhead, it started to get a bit rainy and cold. We ran into a friend from Washington heading back out to trail from Mammoth Lakes. We couldn’t believe we were only a day behind him! We hadn’t seen him since early July.

At the trailhead, a woman saw us putting on hats and gloves while standing at the bus stop and offered us a ride into town to save us from the cold. She took us straight to the post office! Unfortunately, Alex left her hiking poles in her “boot” and couldn’t flag her down before she drove away. We didn’t exchange names. Fortunately, she had a very distinct hairstyle and accent. We will post on a local Facebook trail angel group to see if anyone knows the woman and can help reunite Alex with her poles before we have to leave town. It’s a long shot (Mammoth Lakes has a resident population of about 7,000), but worth a try.

We stayed at the most hiker friendly hotel. The manager let us check in super early and even offered Alex a hiking pole that a former hiker left behind.

We did our usual town routine: showers, laundry, coffee. Jason impulsively bought the entire cake at the bakery for his birthday. The freedom to do that on a whim is freeing.

We ran around town to a few gear stores, grocery stores, and a belated birthday dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Mammoth Lakes was the hugest town! We measure town size in units of “Trout Lakes.” Trout Lake was a resupply town in Washington and about the tiniest a town can be. Mammoth Lakes was easily over 100 TL.