Kuni, a hiker that we’ve seen since almost day one!
The view from the morning deposit
The climb from camp up to Glen Pass was brutally steep! I want to say even steeper than Forrester, but maybe I just forget how steep each pass was once I’m in the next one. Luckily, it was mainly snow free. (And beautiful!)
I threw some rocks into this semi-frozen lake and it sounded awesome!
I passed quite a quite a few folks on the way up, I must’ve really slept in! Soon, I was making that last switchback! The views from the top were amazing! Someone said Keglegs had just started her descent not too long beforehand, and Julian must be ahead. I had someone take my photo at the top and started down to catch up!
Looking North. See the snow traverse on the far right?
Don’t want to glissade that guy!
Wouldn’t want to slip here..
I headed down down down, through semi-sketchy snow covered switchbacks and sliding scree slopes. I soon caught up with Keglegs and shortly afterwards Alright and Julian! After a fun little glissade, the trail started to leave the snow and around the corner we were able to see the first of many lakes that make up Rae Lakes.
Gaaaaaah! So beautiful!
The trial got close to the lake and we had some great, pretty flat trail for awhile. The trail continued onto a little island and we had to ford a nice and refreshing, ice cold “river” to get to the next one!
Julian going across in his undies
Since I’m a lot taller, I just had to roll up my pant legs. After crossing, we sat up high on the rocks to wait for Keglegs, until the mosquitos let us know it was time to go..
Watching another group of hikers cross from up on my perch..
View from my perch of the first Rae Lake
The trail started to descend into the valley. One thing that is VERY similar to 2016 are the darn mosquitos! You can’t even stop and hang out for 5 minutes anywhere even remotely next to water without being swarmed! Kind of a bummer, but I’m trying to not let it take away from this experience!
In 2016 the main river was so swollen that this whole part of the path was also a river! Claire and I had at first tried to stay dry, and succeeded almost all day, but eventually had to give in and get our feet wet.
We are now officially hiking with Alright, and by this point he and the other two had taken a break back in a pretty mosquito-y area, and I had decided to continue on down the long descent and find a nice mosquito free zone to rest and eat some more. I waited in a nice spot about a 1/4 mile from the river for what seemed like hours but was probably only 45 minutes. I decided to continue on towards the river and hope for no skeeters. There was an awesome suspension bridge there that I had totally forgot about!
It was here that I put my pack down in the shade and got out some more food to eat. Within a few minutes the rest of the crew came down the hill. They had apparently built a fire to ward of the mosquitos during their last break, and THAT’S why it had taken them so long to catch up. All of this was fine by me as we only had ~3 more miles to hike and it was only a little after 1pm. We ended up taking another long break in the beautiful mosquito-free zone near the suspension bridge.
Alright chillin’ hard
Julian and Keglegs down under the bridge
At about 3:00pm we headed back out and started the climb out of the valley and the approach towards Mather Pass. The trail followed along a very pretty river and crossed many little side creeks. There was even a huge granite slab that looked like a giant water slide! It must’ve been 500 ft long! No one would ever dare slide down the river slide, as they would surely face certain doom at the bottom! It was sure beautiful to look at though!!
Giant river slide!!
Moments after we hit mile 800!! I’ve hiked 800 miles in just 50 days! Woo-hoo!!
Alright log-jamming
In this area the trail crossed about 10 different small side streams in less than 500 ft!
Looking back down the valley from the trail
Shortly after all those smaller rock-hops to get across the streams, there was a very large stream crossing and the water was raging!! This is where Claire and I had to inevitably get our feet wet last time, didn’t have time to dry them that night, and had frozen feet in the morning for Mather Pass... This time o was determined to stay dry!! Julian, Keglegs and Alright all ended up going through the river with their shoes on, and I was able to go waaaaaaaaaay upstream and find a safe crossing... Worth it!!
About a mile after that we came across the same campsite that Claire and I slept at in 2016! This time we were earlier so there was no one in the prime area under the trees. I went for the exact same small site off to the side that we had slept on, just for memories sake :)
It’s kinda shaped like a heart! Awwww :)
Not a bad yoga/stretching view
Complete with private water scramble down to the river!
It’s crazy the specific things I remember being back out here two years later. I remember the exact log we dried our shoes out on, I remebered the specific spot on the log we sat on to eat! I remeber almost falling down into the stream because this pizza shaped bit of rock was loose on the very bottom step:
I’m really having fun out here, but I’m also really missing my girlfriend! I do get to see her in exactly 10 days, but that can’t seem to come fast enough! I’m still enjoying myself out here (especially with the newer, slower pace over these passes), but the PCT will always be in my mind as the great adventure that Claire and I set off to accomplish together, and what an accomplishment we had!!
After setting up the tent, I collected wood with the others and Keglegs started a proper fire to dry out all of their shoes and to keep the mosquitos at bay!
Julian drying his shoes
It’s been a great, relxing day. Tomorrow we do another small day (around 14 miles), to go up and over Pinchot and approach Mather. I can’t wait!
Thanks for reading!
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