While in Bishop....the first visit

So on the last post I talked about how we were out of food and were planning on heading into Bishop the next day. Well, the next day came and in the morning while we ate breakfast we ran into three of our friends passing by our campsite: Rogue, Heroh and Dune. After finding out that they were, too, heading towards Kearsarge pass to go into Bishop, they all stopped and ate a snack with us while we finished cleaning up camp. That day was slow ( at least for Rogue and I who stopped to enjoy frequent breaks) but very pretty. The pass itself was incredibly steep and rocky near the end but we all made it over with some snacks to spare and stopped to take lunch at the lake two miles down the other side.Once we reached the parking lot to hitch into town, we got picked up by these two cool young hikers that Nick and I had actually run into a day before on the trail (how cool!). They had a very tiny vehichle though so Rogue, Nick and I were packed in tighter than sardines. I quite literally had to look up at the ceiling because there was no other room for my head. It was a long (bout 40 minutes) and very uncomfortable ride, but we still all managed to laugh a lot and have great conversation.

View From Kearsarge

All I could see of Rogue in the Sardine Car

All I could see in front from the Sardine Car

All I could see of Nick in the Sardine Car

Once we arrived in Bishop the first thing we did was, of course, eat. We tried out Schat's Bakery which was awesome because they sold stuff a day old for half-price or less, and then went and got a cheap meal from Carl's Jr., which had the amazing deal of two large shakes for $4.00!!! (Nick clearly took advantage of thus several times. 

After this, we went on a hunt for the Bishop Hostel we had been hearing so many good things about from other hikers (for example, that is was only $15 a night for PCT-ers). But it could not be found! All the hotels insisted there was no hostel and the locals we asked looked at us like we were asking where they stored the alien spaceships. Anyways, finally after some blog-digging on the internet I found someone who had posted the hostels phone number, called the hostel, and found it. And it, was awesome. It is on old (over 100 years old) blue Victorian house run by a really cool young man named Matt (who also had really cool parents who were visiting). We found out no one in town knew about the hostel because he had just opened it two weeks ago!! How crazy is that? But Kudos to you, Matt, you're doing a great job!

When we arrived at the hostel (on July 02) we had told ourselves (as we often do when in town) that we were only go to stay one night. You see, we have two friends who were renting a cabin in South Lake Tahoe from the 12 to the 18th of July and we wanted to at least hike up to Mammoth before then, so we were on a pretty tight schedule. But then, you know, what kind of Americans would we be if we skipped the upcoming Fourth of July party that the Hostel was hosting? And so many of our friends were there! Like Sarah and Avocado, Wyoming and Cowboy, Pounce and even Snake Charmer Showed up (our friend from the trail angel's house in Onyx). Not to mention all of the new friends we made: Moonshine, Vennie, Yuke (who has an awesome Ketchup-bottle tattoo, Gator (who was from Texas and had the best mustache I've seen on trail so far), Joe (who gave us a ride to the hot-springs), ans so man more. So we stayed, and it was great. 

Matt's mom made this beautiful cake all by hand/ from scratch (seriously it took her hours and was incredible), they had a hot-tub (that we managed to squeeze 12 people into...there was no water left by the time we all got out), a ping-pong table, live music provided by hikers (including Nick) and fireworks!

So after we were all done having a good time, Rogue, Snake Charmer, Nick and I all headed out to re-summit Kearsarge Pass once again rejoin the beautiful and challenging Sierra Mountains.