July 1st, 2016
Miles Hiked: 14
Start Location: 1034
End Location: Ebbitts Pass Mile 1048
End Location GPS: 38.54574, -119.81126
Had a nice morning hiking through some really beautiful and easier sections of trail. Very patchy snow in only a few areas and not too difficult to walk through.
I checked my phone if I had service and to my surprise I did. Since we were going to get to Ebbitts pass early, around 3, we decided we would try to hitch into Arnold to meet my sister a day early as they were arriving into town.
The hith was tough. Arnold from the pass is probably over an hours drive through windy roads. Not many hikers hitch on this road, and it is habitated mostly by vacationers that have little interest in picking up hitch hikers. These people often like to wave and gawk and give the thumbs up. I can picture conversations they must have with each other when they see us, “Hey Sherley, look at those idiots hitch hiking! What a hoot!”
“Don’t even THINK about picking up those vial creatures, Roger! They will most likely rob us for sure- or even kill us- or worse even. Just last week they had a special on Dateline called Hitch Hiking Horrors. I ain’t never picking up no stinking hitch hikers!”
It took us 3 hours for someone to pull over, and he was only going halfway. He said there would be more traffic going further at Bear Valley, where he dropped us off. He was a cool guy from Truckee up for the weekend doing some stand up paddle boarding at some of the lakes out here.
It took us another 40 minutes to get the second hitch, which was by a nice gentleman named David who had an oxygen tank and a small Siamese cat named Sushi free roaming the van. David said he needed the oxygen for when he is anywhere above 5000k feet. His breathing was really labored as he zipped down the windey road. At one point his portable oxygen unit toppled over. He asked me to place it on the ground somewhere. I handled it like a bomb about to explode, as this was my lifeline. If the oxygen went out that would be it!
We finally made it to Arnold after more than 5 hours hitchhiking and sat our butts at the pizza joint in town, ordered delicious pizza and all you can eat salad bar. Gina and Danny arrived 45 minutes later and it was so good to see them! They carted us off to our luxury accomodation for the weekend, and it felt so good to feel not so homeless for the first time since we started.
hi you two. i m a friend of dom s mom who told me about your venture. it s been so fun reading your blogs. the pictures that you have been sharing are so fantastic. you both have to write a book about this time. i ll be the first one to buy it. keep on trekking and have fun. you are both very talented writer