North Lake Trailhead to Cold Water Campground (PCT/JMT)
This year we wanted to go big. We planned a three week trip, but due to the National Parks being anti-dog, we cut it down to two weeks and started above Kings Canyon NP. Normally I post a map of our route on this page, but due to its length, the map would show little detail. I opted instead to create the movie above using Google (/spit) Earth Pro. The movie provides a tour and overview of our planned route. Much of the imagery is from 1993 satellite photos, so the areas of snow don't correspond to the conditions we encountered.
This trip required substantial planning and significant physical preparation. Even so, some segments pushed us to the limit. One thing that is completely different than our typical trips, was the amount of traffic. Normally we try to go to places, and at times, when running into other humans is unlikely. When hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, or worse, the John Muir Trail section of the PCT, you are encountering other hikers every few minutes. I suppose this is why the death toll per year is generally low. You can be completely clueless and unprepared to take care of yourself, but run into nice people to bail you out all day long. If you want to get a completely unrealistic idea of "real backpacking," picking a route along the PCT will certainly do it.
Many of you know that in past stories, I hid the images of certain people in the photos. Most people didn't find them all, but one of Andra's colleagues easily found everyone. This time I'm making it way harder. I speak in movie lines as a matter of course. Almost no one notices because they don't have the scripts of hundreds of movies and sci-fi TV programs memorized. Throughout the text, I use many movie lines, or paraphrase them. In some cases, I simply mention character names and something that relates to the scenes they were in. Can you find them all and attribute them to the correct movie or TV series? There are 12 instances hidden in the 118 pages below. I'll give you guys 1 week, before I release the answers. I'm guessing Imho and Keith will have the best chance. Good luck!