Day 36: Sunday, June 9

Tenting at some random campsite (656.9), walked 6.6 miles today

Forced awake at 6:30 by the sun even though I'd wanted to sleep longer. Staggered the one mile down to the Walker Pass campground and walked right into trail magic ... pancakes, fruit, water, shade, sodas, the whole damn thing. The person serving pancakes said, "Hi, I'm Yogi." I said, "Hi, I'm Scrub. I've been e-mailing you this whole time." She said that what I had been sending was actually useful and some of it was already in the copy for the next book. Good to actually meet her in person, and good I got there when I did because within a few hours she had packed up her car and was headed back to Kansas. She and a few other people had been running the trail magic for the last 10 days.

As has been the pattern, I went from totally alone into a massive crowd of hikers. Chilled all morning with Sneaks, Rubadub, Tunes, and Gehaz the Gangster. Others were around but all in and out with rides down to Lake Isabella. Took the siesta to end all siestas from 12-4, then stuck around for dinner, then finally left at 6:30. Only made it about 5 miles out, then had to stop because there was a fine campsite and an even finer sunset. Pitched my tent for the first time since the 11th day, just for practice and because I was worried it was molding in its stuff sack (it wasn't). A lady named Lionheart and I were all ready to get to sleep, then a shitload of people showed up and started making a lot of noise, they want to watch Mystery Men on Netflix with the reception they're getting from Ridgecrest. Makes me pine for the days when I don't see another human.