August 8

Purple Lake to Red’s Meadow – 13.5 miles

We started the day undecided whether to push long miles or stop early at Red’s Meadow. For me, a couple of miles down the trail, I was pretty sure I’d stop for the day at Red’s Meadow. And as we headed down the trail, Lisa ran into a couple of girls she knew of through Bike and Build, an organization they’d all participated in, and as they were headed to Red’s Meadow for a resupply, that finalized the plan to do a short day. Largely downhill to Red’s Meadow, the day was pretty quick and relatively easy.

On one stretch of trail we kept seeing pink ribbons with cryptic writing. We first thought some group was doing some kind of treasure hunt activity until we figured out they were directions to a volunteer trail maintenance crew along the trail. Having picked up a couple ribbons (in the interest of leave no trace), Lisa quickly replaced the removed ribbons. One stretch of trail skirted Upper Crater Meadow which was chock full with a variety of wildflowers. I kept following behind our little group as I stopped to take pictures. A clear benefit of the late snow melt was the amount of wildflowers in bloom in August.

A bit further down the trail, Mammoth Mountain came into view. No snow was visible from the west, the direction we were passing, but it had been open until the prior weekend for (limited) skiing. We then passed through the devastated forest south of Red’s Meadow with spires of dead trees and felled trees all over the landscape. The forest was first burned in the early ‘90s, then had a severe windstorm in 2011.

Like VVR, it felt good to patronize Red’s Meadow which had opened just days earlier. Both the late snowmelt and damage to the road into Red’s delayed their season. Fortunately for us, the showers were working, the store was stocked with beer, and cafe was serving burgers and shakes. Lisa had heard that the backpacker camp filled up quickly so we set up camp first, then headed back to the cafe to relax over a nice meal. Once back in camp, the few of us there initially were eventually multiplied a few times. Just three sites were set aside for “walk in/backpackers” and we had a bit of a tent city. It turned out to be a real fun evening, meeting and socializing with a lot of people, enjoying some whiskey someone had brought along, but passing on other relaxants! I was in rest mode, but the next day was going to be long.