Goal for the day: Fix my boot and make sure my chest pain wasn’t going to end my trek (or my life)

I missed the sunrise since I was too busy sleeping in late for the first time in a couple weeks. It was worth it.

I had breakfast, then started to use the Shoe Goo to reattach the sole to my boot and seal the gap. At first, it didn’t seem to be holding, but after applying some more Goo and compressing the sole and boot, the repair seemed to be holding. I didn’t want to hold the sole too tightly against the boot to avoid flattening out the inside of the boot. So, I turned the boot upside down, propping it up with something (don’t recall what), and put the other boot on top to apply a little pressure, but not too much to compress the boot part. Odd balancing act.

I actually had to apply a little additional Shoe Goo a couple times later in the day over some air bubbles that had formed. Wanted to make sure no big gaps would form and cause the sole to break off again. And to help ensure the boots were still waterproof.

Then I put on my fleece pants and heavyweight shirt and went out in the searing heat. Why? I had to wash almost everything else. Even in the heat of the day, I managed to stay cool by doing some shopping in the air conditioned stores. I got a few more things, but nothing major. I was thinking of a new water filter since the one I had kept clogging up, but after cleaning and flushing it out with clean water it was working okay. Patched a couple small tears in the bottom of my new tent. Kind of sucked since I just got it, but the PCT and JMT can be hard of equipment.

Then I moved to one of the motel rooms that had a full AC unit in them. Ah…

That was nice. The other room wasn’t roasting, but this was much better.

As the day went on, the storm clouds over the mountains intensified and I’m sure that if I had still been on the trail, I’d be getting rained on. I may have felt a few sprinkles in Lone Pine, but the mountains tended to squeeze most of the water out of the clouds before they got to this side.

Did make for some pretty pictures of clouds above the mountains.

Double Take and Grunge Bunny were headed back to Horseshoe Meadows that night to sleep at 9,800 feet to get more acclimatization time at altitude. Apparently, they felt they were having trouble now that most of the trail would be at 10k or higher. Their schedule had them going until Bishop Pass in the next 7-8 days. They weren’t planning on climbing Whitney, but that was a long way to go. I know I couldn’t manage that much mileage in that time frame.

So, I said my goodbyes and never expected to see Double Take ever again.You could see the mountains and clouds from the hot tub, so that was a nice way to relax and think about my plans to restart my hike from Horseshoe Meadows the next day.

Everything fixed and prepared for the next day, I just enjoyed the sunset over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Ah… I never get tried of that and the variations Mother Nature throws at you.

Goal for the day: Success! Shoe Goo seems to be working and my chest pain has diminished with the rest and hot tub therapy I manged to get during my Zero Day.

Lone Pine Zero Day – 0 miles – 0 hours 0 minutes
PCT section G – 91.8 trail miles out of 115 total miles (no change)