Shiny, Half Double, 11, Stealth, Namaste, and I hike out of Kennedy Meadows into the Sierra Nevada. We make our way through this interstitial space – the desert and mountains rubbing against each other.

Namaste ordered a portable speaker with great bass and picked it up in Kennedy Meadows. His taste in music, European death metal and ambient electronica, is like hiking with my own personal bi-polar DJ.

We climb past 10,000 feet and I can feel the elevation – like the air is thick (when it’s actually thin). I almost consciously have to pull my legs forward. At some point, even DJ Namaste’s double bass drums aren’t helping to propel me upwards. The altitude is getting to me and, after 15 miles, I have to call it a day. We’re all feeling it, and decide on smiles over miles. We discover a series of tent sites cut into the side of a hill next to Cow Creek. It’s like an Ewok village!

We each set up our tent on a different level. We move around the flat slab rocks to create shelves and tables. Namaste puts on Sun:Monx which blends nicely into our temporary little village.