Day 64

Really big day, walking thirty six miles with 9,600 feet of gain to get from just beyond Desolation Wilderness to Donner Pass, Mile 1154.5 Today was the first day I felt strong endurance-wise since getting back on trail, but that doesn’t mean the day was without challenges—bears, wind, and poor decision making all threatened to derail my hike.

I woke up at 5:15 to the hilarious realization that, in last night’s stupor, I forgot to lay out my sleeping pad and simply slept right on the dirt. I was warm and slept well, so this error only resulted in chuckles. As the others started to stir, I asked them if they were interested in another “event,” this time walking thirty six miles to get to burgers and a free beer at Donner Pass. Neither hesitated in agreeing, so I set off with wind in my sails and them following fifteen minutes later. An hour later, I encountered my first bear, a large and very blonde black bear with very little interest in moving away from the trail. I yelled at him and banged my poles for a solid five minutes before he moved a bit, but then he changed his mind, coming back to the trail and sitting down to stare at me. Eventually, he ambled off and I was able to pass, but I definitely saw quite a few bears at the edge of my vision today as a result.

Soon the others had caught me and we were climbing to the first big ridge traverse of the day. When we got to the top, we were greeted by truly torrential winds which threatened to blow us over with each step. The surroundings, the Granite Chief Wilderness, were beautiful but I captured few photos because of the crazy wind. Finally the trail descended into the trees for a brief respite where we lunched and contemplated the two climbs and one long descent between us and burgers.

Once we were back above tree line on the backside of Palisades Ski Resort, the wind returned with a vengeance. Fortunately the descent through the snowy ski resort was protected, but the next descent, eight miles to Donner Pass, was not so well-situated. I got behind Buff Baby and Cinderella here, so I had to face an even worse wind, this time on top of the barrier and rocky ridge, alone. I survived, but my teeth were gritted for the whole ordeal and I failed to enjoy the expansive views of the Lake Tahoe basin. Alas.

On the descent, I put myself in a really really bad spot through a combination of laziness and poor decision making. Ignoring the signs that other hikers—in particular my two friends—were finding a smarter way around a very steep and medium to high exposure traverse across and then down a huge chute, I marched forwards. When I saw the outline of tracks for the descent, at least a week old, I decided against turning around and instead strapped my microspikes on. Fucking idiot. It took me at least thirty minutes and I fell twice, both times nearly catastrophically. When I finally made it down to the trail, a group of backpackers were trying to joke around with me and ask me about trail conditions, but I wasn’t really having it since I was crying and just wanted to go down and get my burger. Buff baby and Cinderella were waiting for me where their reroute met back up with the trail, and they roused me enough to make the final descent as painless as possible. I ate a huge bowl of chili, a burger, garlic fries, and a slice of caramel apple pie with two scoops of ice cream. Meanwhile I was entertained by the throngs of motocross riders and groupies populating the bar, as there is some big “hard enduro” race happening here at Donner Pass tomorrow. We were so comatose and it was so cold outside that we decided to spend the night in their bunk house. It was glorious.