Day 18 Tennessee Pass to Stream

Day 18 

Monday, July 21, 2014

Mileage: 10.5 miles 

Elevation: 10,400 to 11,200 ft

Woke up hostel early to make our yummy pancakes... So good when you are hiking. We can't cook these pancakes on our hikes because of the altitude . It takes sooooo long, and while we are fine tunning our pancakes, we get passed by CT hikers looking at us strangely . You see, when you are in the backpacking world, that is such a donkey rookie thing to do. Hee-haw! Yup, we only needed to do that once. 

Getting a ride to and from the trail and hostels can be tricky, and unpredictable . The great thing however about hiking is meeting amazing people along the way, that become instant friends. Strange as it may be, it's true.  We met this next couple "Will and Amy" on our climb over copper mountain . They along with their trusty companion "scout" stayed at the hostel with us... And they had their car!! Yup, you guesed it. They gave us a ride back to the trail!

Thank you Will , Amy  and Scout for the friendship and the ride . Stay in touch:).

Back on the trail , and we encounter a trail magic box full of goodies for CT hikers!!

Pippy was estatic to find granola and fig bars!

So awesome to get treats.

The trail started off back into the deep forest ... Very quiet and serene.

We love meandering through these meadows.

Pippy in the lead. We stayed on this trail through the meadow for a few miles .

Then we started to climb up higher along side and ridges of the mountain and saw this view.

It was a killer climb, you can see the opposing mountains beyond .

And then...we climb down the other side of the mountain and came across this meadow..two other hikers making their way. We nicknamed them "Harry Potter and Ron Weasley" 

At a rest stop, and once again flowers surround us.

And after all of that, we had to climb back up another mountain!! Sheesh.,but look at this view..

Here we are at the top and making our final decent back down this side and in search for a place to sleep. We celebrated our climb by taking one of those pictures where you turn the camera around and take a picture of yourself. (Pippy can't even say or spell the word " s**lf**")

Mosquito viille!!! Yikes, they are like flying jelly fish. Big buggers. We zippity -up'd our tent and stayed behing the screen all night... It was a 10 hour hiking day.. Very tired.

A crimson sky to bless the day.

Good night peeps ...

Day 19

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Mileage: 3.5 miles until the end of Segment 9!

Elevation: 11,200 down to 10,000 ft (you know what's coming up..a climb!) 

This morning, we made another donkey move. We were tired and wanted to sleep a little more. Well, it turns out... a lot more! We couldn't believe it. The camera read 7:42 AM! That's like starting the trail at 11 AM in the backpacking world! Awhhhhhh...but if felt so good to sleep in! Were from Hawaii, we need it.

Just as we were emerging, a troop of what sounded like Girl Scouts were high tailing past our tent on the trail. The ringleader simply mumbled a half-hi and was on her way. Her constituents closely followed behind. They were actually three go-getters in their early 60's doing like 20 miles a day! Of course they gave us that donkey "you're getting up now??" look. We just smiled and waved. Pretty soon, a solo talkative hiker man whose doing the PCT next, a speedy middle-aged lady nicknamed "Twinkle-toes", and a group of three late-20's thru-hikers zipped down the trail past us. As fast as we could, we packed our things, ate breakfast, and slid on our packs to join the rest of the marching hikers. 

The morning sun was out and happy. We soon passed back a beautiful alpine lake.

Check out the amazing reflection on the water!

Humming along down the trail, we met up with two day hikers nicknamed "Nice and Steady". They cheered us on as a mother and daughter hiker team and shared their stories of their thru-hike along the 2,700 mile Pacific Crest Trail. We enjoyed their knowledgable and wonderful conversation, which brightened our hiking day!

Pippy with Team "Nice and Steady" ( they mentioned their name switches roles sometimes) 

And then...we came across more hikers that made us smile even more? Meet "Bailey" and "Licorice"! 

Hey Bailey!

Hola Licorice! Nice profile view!

While meeting all of our new friends, we snapped many pictures. Here's some favorites...

Bountiful streams of water from fresh ice melt. We've never seen water as clear and Snow White as this!

Cartoon-like clouds dispersed in the blue blue sky 

But it wasn't all water and trees...here's a  hot, dry desert section that made us feel like we were in the Mojave desert.