Day 59

Tomorrow two new friends and I are shooting for forty miles so this needs to be a short one. A lot happened today, so I’ll go through the highlights.

I awoke from my poor sleep to immediate diarrhea, so I gave in and took my anti-diarrheal medication, resigning myself to a day of stomach cramps and no hunger. It didn’t even work, so lesson learned there. The climb up to the ridge before Sonora Pass was long and gradual, so I made good time given my poor condition. At the top I was greeted by a truly nasty headwind, something which would remain for the entirety of the six mile ridge traversing steep snow chutes. Fun. I also ran out of water on the way up and didn’t find any collectible snowmelt on the ridge (duh), so I was also pretty dehydrated until I caught the far more prepared Lioness, a woman I met yesterday, and mooched half a liter off of her. The ridge traverse was very pretty but I took no pictures because of the wind. Here’s the climb up.

Then came the descent to Sonora Pass. It was totally snow-covered, and, as I learned later, posed problems for everybody today. The long story made short is that I ended up cliffed out and had to do an extremely sketchy class 4 scramble to save my ass. Ask me for the story some other time. Eventually, eventually, I made it to the pass—the first time the PCT has crossed a road since Kennedy Meadows 330 miles back! Here I was greeted with excellent trail magic—two cold cans of Coke, Oreos, and a Slim Jim. I hung out with the guy for awhile, enjoying the vintage cars and the weirdos who drive them come up the pass for a photograph. The coolest car was a mint green decommissioned forest service truck which a guy had outfitted to be both his home and a mobile shop for his job as an electrician. I’m pissed I didn’t grab a picture.

The climb out of Sonora Pass was steep and hot, and the descent had the most snow I’ve encountered on this stretch, several miles worth and a few chutes at the top. Traversing one of them i thought to myself ‘it would be nice to have my spikes on for this’ moments before slipping and sliding down the chute. I arrested my fall by jamming my hand as hard as I could into the soft snow, earning me a bloody hand and a second lease on life. Once the chutes were done it was low angle snow for an interminable three miles. Zoom in for a really cute dog.

Once my feet hit trail I was feeling really good, so I decided to cruise up the first short climb to make camp. When I got there, I was chatting with Pixie when Buff Baby walked up. He was walking further and that was all the motivation I needed. I was in the backseat for four more miles of up and down until we caught his hiking partner Cinderella setting up camp at Mile 1030.7 around 8:00. We were all in a funny mood at dinner, so we decided to have “an event” tomorrow: walk more than forty miles so that we can have a short day into South Lake Tahoe. Sounds fun! Though we’ll see if my body is up for it. My alarm is set for 3:30.