Day 70: Silver Pass Lake - Mammoths Lakes

Day: 16.06.2018 Miles hiked today: 23 Miles Total Mileage: Mile 906.7

Tonight was freezing and I hardly slept because I was so cold! But luckily this is the last pass to hike before Mammoth Lakes and also I believe the last higher pass. There are some passes to come, only about 3 or 4 I think but they are rather low and easy to hike. As today we plan to hike into Mammoth Lakes, which is still 23 miles away, we got up early. It's only little less than 1 mile to hike to the pass, so we did all the hard work already yesterday! Great, I'm so happy we did do so. We hiked up and the morning sun rise was beautiful. So beautiful we didn't really check the trail (still little snow covered and hence hard to see I must say) and just continued to walk on straight. Which turned out to be wrong! So where the heck did the trail go? We hiked up the bushes, trees and rocks until eventually we are back on the trail. But it was a hard piece of work! The upper part of the downhill was also snow covered and with all the sun cups it was hard to figure out which ones are foot print and which ones are only sun cups. All the way down it goes back up. And how it goes up, Holly cow, I thought it's just a small climb! But apparently a very steep one! Now it's downhill and one more climb until it's all downhill to red's meadow from where we take a bus down to Mammoth Lakes. We are lucky again because the bus from Red's Meadows to Mammoths Lakes is only running as of today! The street up there was closed for snow clearance before that!

Aaand there goes another 100 mile marker - we just passed the 900 mile marker this afternoon! Since we stopped for lunch we are literally running down that mountain! It's 9.2 miles for lunch to red meadows and we did 3.6 miles in 1 hour, 7.2 miles in 2 hours and the 9.2 in less than 3 hours. Our fastest mile was hiked in less than 15 minutes! Finally, after 23 miles I can't hike any longer and we reach red's meadow. I just kicked my left foot against a rock a mile or two back and it hurts. I hope nothing bad happened and it's just hurting today (I'm not planning on hiking or walking much more today!). There are buses down to Mammoth lake village all 20 minutes. But first we tread ourselves with a beer! While waiting for the bus I hear some Swiss German. And really, there are 3 guys from Lucerne! That's were I lived the last couple of years!!! One of them heard about the PCT and is really interested in it. So we chat all bus drive long and got offered a lift into the actual town. The bus stops at the village which is a place for skiing or downhill biking in summer. But the acutal town is a little further down. We still have to sort out a place to stay tonight. Due to a marathon and a yoga festival all hotels, motels and even the RV Park are pretty busy! The Swiss guy is so patient and drives us from one place to the other, just to hear all the times "sorry no vacancies for tonight!". Finally we found a hotel which still has a room available but it's damn pricey, 230 USD. Well, we are all tired from our long hiking day and it seems to be the last place available so we take it. But only for one night. The second night we booked at the hostel, which is 40 USD for a shared room, also not too cheap. All I want is a warm shower and food thereafter. So I turn on the shower but after more than 10 minutes still only cold water. That can't be! I pay that much for this room I for sure want hot water. I get really annoyed and am just about to complain at the front desk when the water would become warm. Better for them! Jason texts that they are going for Pizza tonight. Perfect timing, we shall join! As Joanne is still waiting for Giggles (It was his birthday yesterday and we haven't seen him since Bishop), Peter and me are going ahead. While passing the front desk I hear other people complaining about having only cold water so I join and tell them that also no real hot water waa available in our room. It turned out that it was good to complain, but we shall see tomorrow.

Hauser and Philly are at the pizza place too! We order pizza and a drink, eat and drink it but still no sign of Joanne and Giggles. Around 10:30 pm we return to the hotel and Joanne and Giggles are just about to leave. I'm so tired after that day I just fall into this lovely bed and fall asleep!