Jennifer Whitcomb: PCT Thru-Hiker

Jen's friend Colin

Trail markers

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Week 4: Kennedy Meadows, California

June 20

This is really low-key for the fabled Kennedy Meadows I expected. I've seen pictures of this place swarming with hikers holed up in wait for snow melt in the Sierras, but there are only a couple of others here at the moment. Colin and Steve just left the trail for good—Colin, to follow the Britney Spears tour for the summer, and Steve to start a gig as a pirate for a show in Vegas, which he auditioned for on a whim during our two-day trip there from Onyx a few days ago. Colin has decided that there are too few teenage girls out here for his liking—and even those few we do see are usually afraid of the grungy bearded guy anyway. And I can't blame them, as (despite the ecco loafers he hikes in) his refined charm has somewhat taken a backseat to his new hiking animal persona. So the Britney Spears tour—yes, to quote Colin: "the lion's den." He has my e-mail address, so perhaps we'll hear an update from him in the next couple months. I hope he remembers to shave first.

A cabaret dancer friend of Colin's drove out and kidnapped us on Route 178 for the trip to Vegas. I had never been, and cannot imagine a more overwhelming place to end up in after a quiet outdoor month of relative solitude. The entire city is a desert shrine to decadent artifice. Pyramids, a Sphinx, the Eiffel Tower, Venetian gondoliers, Roman Coliseums . . . all side by side on the same street. Walking through the casinos in our hiking attire, Colin and Steve explained to me the rules of the various games. I'd never been inside a casino. We'd stop to watch at some of the high-stakes tables . . . people winning and losing in single hands enough to finance entire thru-hikes. (Funny how I now think of large sums of money in those terms.)

Back on the trail . . .

Since Tehachapi, we have been testing out a new tent . . . we traded the silver spaceship tarp for a floor-less pyramid tent, a design I learned about from hiking gods Fiddlehead and White Root. It has worked well so far—in fact, it's perfect for the way I function, as there are no worries about tracking in dirt, there's no fly to mess with, and with 81 square feet of space inside, there's room for three people plus gear. We hit some rain on the way into here, and happily we learned it is a much quieter night's sleep under this thing than under the jury-rigged, Mylar-covered tarp we started with.

The P.O. in Onyx didn't have the box I forwarded from Wrightwood, which concerns me a little since I wanted my stove back before hitting the Sierras. So I had to take the dry food out of my mail drop and will do some last-minute cold food shopping here at the General Store before setting out. Too bad I can't be as creative here as we were in Big Bear.

I heard that there was a binder/register here that had printouts of the names and dates of when hikers signed many of the registers down south. Sure enough, there was my name (in pink, since I'm a girl) and date on several pages, from several road crossings and P.O.'s. Weird. Gives me kind of a big brother vibe. So since hearing about it I've been using different names, heeheehee.

Well, here's hoping I can send this out from Tuolomne . . .

What is she carrying? Check out Jen's gear list.
Missed week three? See the trail dispatch archive.