Day 44

Another big day! I love every second in the high sierra so much, I think I decided today to continue for another week before returning to Chicago for graduation and moving. I’m writing this blog post at a campsite with the following amenities: in a stand of gorgeous sequoias, a few steps away from a raging green creek where I soaked my legs, jagged granite towers to the north, and towering Mount Stanford to the south. Frankly, I have no desire to leave this place. If I wasn’t almost out of food, then there would be no way I would be in Bishop tomorrow. But for the time being I have responsibilities, so I will dutifully return.

Today began with a series of lapses of judgement, some benign and some quite dangerous. I’ll briefly list them and not linger on them: I hit snooze for 30 minutes, thus pushing my start until nearly 4:30, far too late to go up and over Forrester Pass—the highest point of the PCT at 13,200 feet—with good snow conditions. I decided to take a shortcut to the first river crossing since the trail was completely snowed over. I decided to not put on my microspikes since my hands were cold, and this lack of traction caused me to fall and slide 15 feet into a rock and then a tree. Fortunately this didn’t injure me. I next crossed a snow bridge over a raging creek which I only very lazily tapped with my ice axe before marching across. I soon snapped back to my rational and cautious self after three freezing creek crossings and a much needed reality check from Roadrunner and AO. This period—from about 4:30 until 6–really freaked me out.

The sun was coming up and we were still 5 miles from the top of the pass, so we really started to hustle to avoid mushy conditions. At this point we began catching up with the rest of our group, a fun surprise given that we camped spread out over a ten mile slice of the trail.

After one last creek crossing which all but ensured wet feet for the rest of the day, we were finally making the approach to Forrester Pass. Holy crap was it pretty: an expansive and completely snow covered meadow surrounded on three sides but jagged peaks. The last picture is Forrester Pass itself, pretty intimidating from that distance.

Once I made it to the rock itself, only 500 feet of exposed switchbacks cut into the snow, a scary ~70 degree chute, and a tremendous cornice stood in my way. Feeling much stronger than yesterday at elevation, I tackled these obstacles in no time.

After enjoying a nice snack at the pass, we rushed off to begin the long descent towards the exit towards town. Conditions on this north facing slope were not ideal—complete snow coverage and slushy conditions, given that it was already 9:30. I looked like this quite a few times.

Fortunately the surroundings were so beautiful that the suffering wasn’t too acute.

Several glissades and slushy traverses later, the descent continued through a dense glade next to a roaring creek. The walking immediately became a slog, so after crossing the creek via a downed tree we bedded down for lunch. Since it was clear at this point that I would be in Bishop tomorrow morning, I ate a much needed double lunch of, variously, tortillas, Nutella, peanut butter, and Landoaegers.

After lunch we entered posthole city, falling through with almost every step. Though I was annoyed by the slow progress, my body felt fine and I had lots of energy. However, I found myself hiking with AO and Roadrunner, who were inclined to make camp soon to end the suffering. Feeling keen to hike on top of the snow tomorrow morning, I agreed. After the most disastrous poop of my life—rivaled only by yesterday’s rockfall/dropped pack wag bag poop on Whitney—I caught up with them at the aforementioned beautiful spot next to the creek at Mile 787.2.

Excellent day. Tomorrow we go up and over Kearsarge Pass to end up in Independence and ultimately Bishop for some rest and relaxation.