PCT day 34 - mile 725 to mile 751

"We got sucked into a black hole of Kennedy Meadows, but where else you can talk to so much hiker trash" Karaoke.

Long day, but it seemed easier than yesterday. First of all there was not as much altitude gain, and my body got used to being high up since yesterday. The backpack got slightly lighter and I ended up repacking it, bear canister as the heaviest item landed at the bottom of it to distribute the load better and it worked just fine.

I started walking at 6am, it was all downhill for the first 7 miles, after half an hour of hiking I suddenly heard noise to the left of the trail, I looked down and I saw a big black bear running straight at me! I don't know if I was more in shock or in awe to see it, but I stopped and tried to get my camera out. Then when the bear was about 10 metres from me it finally spotted me (it must have been running away from something else, and apparently they don't have great sight) it immediately did a 360 turn and run away where it came from :) It was an absolutely amazing encounter, some people hike PCT without ever seeing a bear, I feel honoured.

At 8:30am I reached first water source, Ice and Axe joined me after a while. We agreed to hike together to Chicken Spring Lake at mile 751, it was a bit ambitious but it divided the distance for tomorrow to reach the ascent to mount Whitney quite well.

High Sierras environment although very beautiful is less abundant (vegetation wise) than the desert, it pays back with the diversity of animals, there's plenty of marmots, chipmunks, many kinds of birds, bears and other mammals I hopefully will be able to see. It makes for less photo opportunities as animals usually disappear before I take out the camera.

Later during the day I met a duet of older ladies with trail names: True Love and Karaoke, they both unfortunately will be going out of trail at the next detour in 15 miles. True Love is missing her labrador dog which she decied not to take on trail but now she regrets her decision and decided to rejoin him and Karaoke has been struck by a family tragedy as her brother died. It shows well how life can change our plans very quickly, a lot can happen in those 5 months of hiking.

We reached the lake at about 5pm, I've set up camp at the beach and had a walk in the freezing cold water, Axe went for a quick swim - the madman, few guys were trying to fish but with no success - it is legal to both swim and fish in the Sierra Nevada wilderness. Everyone other than me in the campsite tonight seems to be German, which I could turn into a very inappropriate joke, but I shall not go there.

The sun went down and the frogs immediately started their concert by the lake, I have no clue how they survive here at over 11000 feet, the lake was still frozen few weeks ago - darn tough frogs they are.

Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit.. Goodnight.

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