Part I: Mammoth Lakes to Yosemite

Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series about my attempt, with brother-in-law Glenn Petersen, to hike 75 miles on California’s John Muir Trail from the Duck Pass Trailhead just south of Mammoth Lakes to the Happy Isles Trailhead at Yosemite National Park. For the most part, the JMT replicates the Pacific Crest Trail in this section, our six-day plan taking us from the eastern flank of the High Sierra to the west.

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — On the morning we left Eugene for what would be our 23^rd stretch of the PCT since 2011, we wouldn’t have inspired much confidence in strangers wondering: Can these two do this?

In preparing to give my pickup’s windshield a final cleansing, I was backhanding the gas-pump squeegee into position when I managed to pop the driver’s-side wiper blade out of place. In 56 years of driving, this had never happened. If I’d been promised $1 million and unlimited attempts to knock the wiper onto my truck’s hood with a mesh-covered sponge, I would never have been able to do this.

But with a 12-hour drive ahead of us and an urgency to get to Mammoth Lakes for a touch of sleep before our 4 a.m. wakeup the next morning, I had done this.

Thunder showers were possible and, besides, it’s illegal to drive in Oregon without working wipers. With the help of AI and YouTube, Glenn and I spent 20 minutes unsuccessfully trying to reattach the blade. We then resorted to the expertise of an early-to-work mechanic at North Eugene Automotive, my go-to place, who fixed it in less than a minute.

So there was that confidence builder. And, of course, there was Glenn showing up at my house at 6:45 a.m. with a four-inch piece of blue painter’s tape stuck vertically to the front of his shirt.

“So I’ll remember to bring my sunglasses,” he said.

I would go into great detail about his head-scratching choice of reminders had I not been the one who, half a mile after our start up Duck Pass, realized I’d left my sunglasses in the truck. Fortunately, I had not one but two backup pairs because of my propensity for losing the things.

My excuse: I’d been preoccupied about the truck itself, worried that, while we hiked north to Yosemite, the vehicle might get broken into by bears. I’d read — and been awed by — What the Bears Know, written by a man whom Mammoth Lakes had hired in the 1990s to cull the city’s menacing bear population. I had great respect for — and a touch of fear regarding — these animals.

I had insisted that we leave no food in the pickup. In fact, leave nothing that even smelled, including Wet Ones, breath mints or sun block. Though in 3,000 miles of PCT hiking I’d seen only the hind end of one bear, I’d longed to spot one — just one — from a distance before my hiking days ended.

For now, I just wanted the bears to not party in my pickup while we were gone. We would have enough obstacles on this trip, the two main ones named Bob and Glenn.