Day 52, 21.44 miles!!

Wow another 20+er in the bag! I’m telling you, 20 miles in the Sierra is TOUGH!! Once again I didn’t leave until a little after 6:00am, and everyone else had already left. Apparently when Alright was in his way to take the Browns to the Super Bowl he sleepless and his whole leg went into the river! 

What a beautiful morning!

I gotta say I’m very impressed with how my pack looks/feels WITH the bear canister along with everything else inside!j

Since we stayed very close to the summit, we hit snow pretty early! The climb was beautiful, although there was a bit of route-finding to be had since there were multiple little streams flowing through snow fields. There was one crossing in which I landed on a slightly icy rock and almost went in!

I met a woman named Extra Miles on the way up. Her phone had died so she asked if she could follow me up since I have navigation on my phone. She hiked the John Muir Trail last year! The trail went waaaaaaay around a frozen lake before switchbackimg up the pass. Most hikers were opting for a steep route straight up the head wall to save a little under a mile, and I decided to do the same.

Climbing straight up the head wall

PCT is on the right. I’m standing on a high switchback. Route on the left is actual PCT. Route on the right comes straight up! See the little people climbing the wall?

Extra Miles

It was such a cool view at the top looking back!

Looking down the other side (North)

I had passed Keglegs on the way up and caught up with Julian and Alright just down on the other side aways. Julian said I should push forward with Alright and he’d wait up for Keglegs, since I’m a bit faster than them and on a long day I prefer to go at a solid pace with minimal breaks and Keglegs likes to take many. Alright and I hiked together for most of the day. Early Bird was well ahead as always, but we caught up around noon.

Alright

The trail winded down all day, like over 6,000ft down! We passed amazing lakes with great reflections, trail side waterfalls, The Golden Staircase, many many rivers and streams and all around beautiful things! And as a bonus, very little mosquitos!

Another group enjoying a huge trail-side waterfall. I’ve heard/asked their names at least twice, and I’m proud to say I remeber not a single one! 

Beautiful trail work

I love it! 

Rivers and streams are swollen, the trail is very frequently a river, and in this case a lake!

Alright handling the log-jam like a pro

A beautiful burn near the King River

Other hikers

Looking back up

Around lunch Alright was a little ahead of me, but I HAD to stop for lunch! I came around the corner and saw a familiar site! It was a huge river-side boulder where Claire and I took a break two years ago. I have a picture of her sitting in the middle of the boulder eating a bag of M&M’s. It was definitely one of our favorite break spots! Of course I had to re-enact, (minus the M&M’s :( ).

Old bridge out 

The spot!

Relaxing and drying out those wet feet!!

Less than 1/2 mile after my break, I ran into Alright and Early Bird. They had a great spot on the other side of the valley where they had plunged into the freezing cold water! Since I had just eaten and wanted to use my energy boost to start the big climb, I opted not to take a dip. There’s plenty of time for that later!

By this time I was very tired, as I had already done over 11 miles of harsh down, and I had over 9 miles of harsh up to go before getting to our proposed camp. I am glad that we have taken the last few days pretty slowly, but there is one downside: we’re all running lower than we thought on food. This means rationing what we have and pushing harder on less calories.

On the way up the other side, Extra Miles amd Nemo caught up to me. They were getting off at Bishop Pass, and have me some extra peanut butter and a big bag of cous cous. I gave the cous cous to Keglegs later since i think she has way less food than me. The peanut butter is all mine!! Anyway, the food shortage is nothing to be worried about, and by the time you read this, it means I’m alive somewhere stuffing my face in town. I just need to not underestimate the amount of food I eat a day, especially out here in the Sierra! My 8 day plan has turned into a ~10 day stretch, and I need to be prepared for that. It’s all part of the experience!

The climb to approach Muir Pass was SO beautiful!! We followed the King River all the way up, and it grew from a mellow, slow, meadow flow to raging waterfalls over granite! Such a pretty afternoon!!

I passed Early Bird on the long way up, and as I was about to reach our group’s camping destination, Alright was coming back down the trail. He reported that the snow line starts before we were going to camp, and that around 20 hikers were crammed in about 10 sites by an exposed lake just before the snow. We’re 3 miles from the pass and there’s supposedly snow for 4 miles on the other side!! Fun fun!!

We decided to head just a few hundred yards back down the trail and find some dispersed flat spots to call home for the night. Early Bird was just behind and relieved we were stopping. Julian came up about 45 minutes later and Keglegs almost an hour after that. We’ve all had a crazy long day!! Tomorrow will be more of the same, we’re trying to push over 20 to time the next pass well.. We’ll see how it goes with all the expected snow travel!

Thanks for reading!