August 29, 2016

Mosquito Flat Trailhead to Ruby Lake

Miles: approx 3 (plus 6 hour drive from LA to Mammoth)

We woke up at 5 am. Laurie couldn’t move. We haven’t had sufficient sleep for 2 nights in a row.

We were on the road by 6:30. The ride up to Mammoth was easy, we slept (well Laurie slept, Andy tried but couldn’t get comfortable), uploaded more blog posts and looked out the window. It was nice riding in the Super Shuttle with more room than an average car.

We got to Mammoth at 11:30 and picked up our resupply boxes from Motel 6. They have been sitting there since early June. We also got a literary care package from Laurie’s cousin. Thank you Sophie and Suzanne!

We found a park and set up our usual feast. In Stehekin we emailed Andy’s parents a list of the food we were craving and Shushan and Greg did a wonderful job preparing it all.

Big Red, someone we met on the trail near Mojave, lives in Mammoth and joined us. We told him our plan to get back to VVR and he provided suggestions that were more direct.

We gratefully appreciated all of the info and suddenly we had saved ourselves a day and would get to explore a new area.

At 4 pm we were dropped off at the Mosquito Flat Trailhead. We said our goodbyes and shouldered our heavy packs. Leftovers + bear cans + 5 days of food makes for heavier than usual packs. But we were only walking 3 miles.

We slowly made our way up to Ruby Lake. We were happy to be back in the Sierras. The granite walls and yellow and green valleys felt so familiar. We were home.

We were not so fond of the “Sierra steps” however. With heavy packs each large step up took a great deal of effort. We felt like we hadn’t hiked in months. We felt stuffed, slow and sleepy.

We got to the lake around 5:30 and set up the tent. Andy immediately fell asleep without even inflating his pad. 

After two hours he woke up and we enjoyed leftovers for dinner (bell peppers stuffed with quinoa, tofu, spinach and feta cheese) and gluten free oatmeal raisin cookies for dessert (thanks Tommy and Ali!! – we saved some of the goodies you sent us for this leg 😉

Tonight we feel grateful for time with family and for sleeping under the stars.