We spent most of the first two hours hiking 
the PCT in a northwesterly
direction,
climbing almost 2,000ft in the process. The trail here is not particularly
scenic, passing through BLM forest burned in several iterations over the past
decade. The old 
Fox mill site is located about 2mi up from the TH, the
structures having seen better days, reduced to rubble scattered about
the foundations. Old furnaces and other stuff is scattered about as
well, Patrick and I taking 5min or so to peruse the various objects and take
pictures of a few of them. Once we were on the 
east side of
Bear BM (Jenkins calls this Bear Mtn in her guidebook,
Exploring the Southern Sierra: East Side), we turned off the PCT to
follow a rough 
dirt road around to the south side of the mountain just
below 8,000ft. From there we headed north 
cross-country for the final
half mile. To our surprise we came across two gentlemen in
a white pickup parked about half way to the top, having come up by some
spur route unknown to us.
They seemed just as surprised to see us. One of them was a technician
who had been working on the small telecom towers near the summit. Not sure who
the other guys was, but it looked like they were just hanging out and avoiding
work. Can't say I blame them, mind you - it was a beautiful day out.
It was 11:15a by the time we reached 
the top of Bear Mtn, marked by a
post, the expected 
benchmark and no register. The views were hazy and
not particularly good because of this. We paused here a while to give Patrick
time to 
eat his lunch and some snacks while I spent time showing no
particular skill in tossing rocks at the wooden post. A mile and a quarter to
the north was the higher Peak
8,337ft with some 750ft of prominence, our next stop. After Patrick had
finished, we continued northwest along the ridge, soon dropping down to a road
which we followed for about a mile until we were on the southwest side of the
second peak. 
A gate
and fence here marked the boundary between the BLM lands
we'd been traveling through and private property that abounds around the
Kennedy Meadows area. It wasn't clear whether our peak was on public or private
land, but it didn't seem to matter much as there appears to be little traffic
in this area.
We found the west and south slopes on Peak 8,337ft to be
moderately brushy.
Fire had destroyed most the trees that once populated the hills here, leaving
a maze of some ugly buckthorn-type of brush to find our way through. Higher up
we found some remnants of the forest not wholly destroyed that offered easier
travel, and we readily took advantage of it. We found 
the highpoint
at the east
end of a large, flattish summit area, neither scenic nor memorable. Large trees,
burned by fire, had crashed to the ground in the vicinity, offering a somewhat
bleak appearance to the highpoint. We roughly followed the same route for about
half the distance descending the peak before 
dropping south down a
broad, less-brushy gully
to intersect a road running down Chimney Creek. This was once part of the
Chimney Peak Loop, a BLM backcountry byway route, but lower down it got washed
out years ago and never repaired. A gate I had found a few years earlier
downstream was locked, only allowing access to local landowners. We followed
this road only a short distance before climbing back up about 200ft on the
south side of the drainage to 
intersect the PCT
once again. From here it was about 4.7mi back to the TH, following
the route we had used on the ascent.
We were 
back
by 3:30p with plenty of daylight remaining. We drove our vehicles
into the campground where we found Laura Molnar who was also there for Tom's
list finish. She had arrived a few hours earlier and had already dispersed her
copious amounts of gear about three adjacent campsites to save them for the
larger group that would arrive the next day. As we pulled into one of the
campsites, Patrick's dashboard lit up with a low tire pressure warning - one of
his rear wheels had gone flat. It wasn't a major problem since his rental car
was equipped with a spare, a tire inflator and all the necessary tools. Being
a Mercedes, there was also a pair of white cotton gloves to keep one's hands
clean - how very German, I thought. In addition, I had a tire repair kit that
could be used to fix the tire
and avoid the use of the spare, if desired. Laura and I took it pretty lightly
and made a few jokes, but Patrick wasn't in a mood to join us for some laughs at
his expense.
He was driving the rental because his Jeep was in the shop for repairs
following a minor accident, and he'd already returned one rental because it
smelled terribly of smoke. He'd had his fill of dealing with auto insurance
bureacracy, repair facilities and rental agencies. He was hating on cars in a
most general sense by this time. It didn't help that their was an awful amount
of annoying flies in our dusty campground and it was not hard to imagine more
pleasant alternatives to our current location. After unloading all his gear, we
jacked up the car and eventually found the cause, a tiny leak that appears
to have been made by a piece of metal cutting into the tread. It seemed to me
that we could either attempt to use the patch kit (not always 100% reliable
and it makes the hole bigger in the process), or leave it be. Once inflated,
the tire should last for half a day before deflating and it wouldn't be too
much trouble getting home. We could even leave the car jacked up until it was
time to leave on Sunday and then inflate it before we take off. Laura was of a
similar mind but Patrick had a third option which was simply to cut his losses
and head home. Though we spent some time dissuading him and it even appeared
we had gotten him to change his mind for about 20min, he could not let his
frustration go so easily and it got the best of him in the end. Home he went.
Laura and I headed off to Kernville about the same time to have dinner at the Kern River Brewery. It was helluva a long way to drive (and back, too) but they had better beer than we had with us in camp, which may have been Laura's prime motivation. Dinner wasn't bad, either. We got back to camp around 8:30p and promptly headed off to bed in our respective vehicles. The hike had been a good workout and I would sleep soundly that night...