Tuesday, July 13th

Tuesday, July 13th

We descend from South Lake, picking up a hitch hiker on the way. Turns out he is from Hong Kong and is in the Sierra with his wife doing the Muir Trail. He describes risking life and limb crossing the high passes of the trail choked with this year's unusually high and late melting snow pack. He is writing a guide book and making a DVD for foreign travelers to the Muir trail. Claims to have hiked it's 220 mile length 24 times.
We drop him in Bishop, stopnon for my 8 cherry turnovers at Schat's Bakery, then head north out of town for Mammoth. Mammoth is 3000' higher than Bishop which equates to 15 degrees cooler. A much more comfortable temperature to do laundry and food and gear sorting. As we climb the grade out of Bishop darned if the oil light and buzzer don't wink on again. Temp gauge looks okay, maybe a little warmer than usual, but certainly not overheated. Plenty of oil. Hmmmm. We limp into Mammoth and divide to conquer. Sally sets up camp in the Laundromat while I seek out a way to change the oil, hoping replacing the 4000 mile old oil will help the old beast. I buy a turkey basting pan at the grocery store, dumpster dive for a
used milk jug in back of a latte shop, find the oil recycling place in town and buy five quarts of 20-50 and a new filter at the NAPA. The Mammoth high School student parking lot has a piece of shade, so I do the change there. Sal and I have lunch at Subway while letting the van cool, then we empty all the gear out to expose the engine and water reservoir. It is down about a quart. I add in enough to fill it and the overflow tank, and we are off to make another food drop, this time by car at Red's Meadow a 22 mile drive from Mammoth, down and then up another very large grade.
We drop the food off at Red's, pay the $35 storage fee and spend a delightful hour talking with some kids thru hiking the PCT. We give them the offer we give all PCT bikers we meet. If they will call us when the reach the Columbia and tell us what they want for a food drop and dinner, we will meet them at White Pass with whatever goodies they desire. Steaks, pies, ice cream . . . whatever. We have done this for three years and have yet to have a taker. But, El Presidente (his trail name-real name Reagan Bush-no kidding!) took our name and number and swore he would call, so we will be anticipating his call sometime in September.
The van performed perfectly on the grade out of Red's. Was it the oil or the water? Don't know-Don't care.
Next, it is back to Tuolumne, a climb from 7000' to 11,000' for the van, a true test of the repair work. It is second gear and 28 mph (luckily it is late in the afternoon and no one gets stuck behind us-damn Volkswagons!) most of the climb, but the temp stays down and the oil pressure holds.
We pick up a permit for an overnight hike to Clouds Rest, a 15 mile round trip, secure camping in the campground, treat the kids at the wilderness office to half a dozen donuts and the kids at the camping office to Cherry Turnovers and we are off to pack our packs for the hike tomorrow.