1000 Miles Later
Wow! My blog writing has not happened on this hike. Before setting off I thought I would be posting a couple times a week and at this point I haven’t shared anything since I set out on this journey. Sorry :(
I do have some good excuses. One of them not being falling into a stream and getting soaked.
The main reason I haven’t written is because I wildly underestimated the involvement of this journey. It is a 24 hour lifestyle with few free moments. This is unlike a job, it’s not a chore - at least most of the time, however when I am not hiking I spend time just taking in the beauty of my surroundings. Or I am enjoying some much needed sustenance. Or connecting with other hikers. That brings me to another reason I am kinda pre occupied. I met a girl on the trail on March 23rd about mile 150 and have been hiking with her ever since - Sonja.
I am bummed that I haven’t had many good opportunities to distill my experiences on this blog. I want to share this journey with my friends and family, so let me begin by sharing the hardest week on trail. I hope I will write about the beginning of my journey at a later point but no promises.
May 6th Friday: Sonja and I returned to the PCT after spending a couple nights with some family friends, Jamie and Joey, who live just south of mammoth. We took kearsarge pass to get back on trail with an eight day foods supply in my backpack. On the way up we past 14 people who were all heading into town. Everyone was surprised that we were heading into the mountains as a storm was coming. Everyone else was going to wait it out. At the time I wasn’t too worried, what’s a little snow? On the previous section we had done Whitney which was over 14,000 feet and forester pass (13,200) the highest point on the PCT. Neither one of those two obstacles were crazy snowy or difficult so we were especially optimistic about what was to come. The passes ahead only went to 12,000 feet so we ditched the ice axes.
Oh boy were we wrong. On the day we came back in we decided to push on to do Glen pass in late afternoon. It was a slog fest. Snow field after snow field. We found ourselves buried in the snow up to our chest at times. I rather enjoyed the day, I found the whole walking 10 steps then falling deep into the snow rather funny and amusing. Sonja didn’t think so all the time - she fell into the snow a couple more times than me.
The next day was again tons more snow. We walked through countless snowfields. It was still early on in our Sierra experience so we were soaking up the beauty of our surroundings. Every mountain lake was pristine, every untouched vista breathtaking. It was sunny and warm so miles were not too bad. But by 10:00 the snow got soft and became a slushy mess. We used micro spikes, but once the snow got bad (slushy) they did little.
The following day we passed mile 800. There was no marking on the trail so I wrote out 800 with rocks I found lying on the ground.
Monday was when the our sierras experience drastically changed. We woke up early Monday morning, a couple miles in front of Pinchot pass. We marched through the cold hours of the morning reaching the top just before 7:00. Most passes are extremely cold at the top because of altitude and wind. So after briefly taking in the scene and snapping some photos we raced down the other side of the pass to lose the wind and escape the cold. At about 12:30 we approached the next pass, Mather pass. We were trying to decide if we should take an early camp and hit it first thing in the morning or carry on. The issue with doing a pass mid day is soft snow. Depending on the pass it can be especially more difficult or potentially dangerous to do it in sub optimal conditions. The other thing is most of these passes in the sierras were at about 12,000 feet. Therefore the last couple miles leading up to them were usually completely covered in snow - meaning no camping or having to sleep on snow. That means a miserably cold night of sleep, No thank you! Nonetheless we chose to go on. The thinking being it was early enough in the day that we could always hike back down if we don’t do the pass to find a place to camp. At this point in the day clouds started coming in which meant it was much colder. This was not fun to hike in but the snow conditions were good. After seeing the pass we had to climb and seeing that the snow was hard we chose to press on.
The base of Mather was unlike any other pass we had been over. Because of snowfall there were no switchback cut into the mountain that were visible, only an incredibly steep wall of icy snow with a ladder of foot steps leading straight up. To the right of this was the same snowy wall but scattered with large patches of rocks. We chose the snow wall. With extreme caution and care we began the ascent. Not having an ice axe I had to use my poles to self belay my self. So I shortened them so that they were about a foot and a half. I jammed one pole into the snow so that my fist rested on the surface. I stepped one foot then the other into a foot hole. I lifted myself up, then jammed the other pole into the snow. I pulled out the first pole I started with and repeated the whole process up the entire wall. Pole, two steps, pole, etc… It was slow process that was quite frightening. It certainly got my heart racing. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this face was somewhere around 300 feet up. After getting about half way up I traversed to the right into the rock clusters. I thought it would be safer having rocks to hold onto as I climbed up. This entire climb was very intense, but after about 40 minutes I was a nearly to the top. I had reached another set of footsteps that ran horizontally across the face and to the top. I carefully stepped onto these tracks and putting one foot in front of the other carefully made it to the last step before lifting my self onto the top of the pass. I let out a huge sigh of relief. That was surely some “crazy shit”. Mather pass is still the craziest pass we have done to date. As we made our way down the backside clouds continued to roll in. Nearing camp around 6:00pm it began to snow.
We didn’t realize at the time that we wouldn’t see the sun nearly at all for the next 4 days. With continued cloud coverage and on and off snow, temperatures stayed well below freezing. Each day we had another pass to go over. Each day we had countless miles of nothing but snow. Each day we grew more tired of the freezing and snowy conditions. Don’t get me wrong, the mountains were breathtaking, and the scenery and wildlife beautiful. But after being cold and miserable every second of every day the beauty of the outdoors lessens and you start to miss having four walls and comfort. One of the toughest things we had to do that week was cross a wide river when it was snowing. Up until that point we had been able to find and use logs or stones to cross rivers, but this river at about 40 feet wide had to be forded. Off came my shoes, off came my socks, and off came my pants. My shoes in one hand and my poles in the other and without to much thought (I didn’t want to spend to long dwelling on getting into a cold river) I stepped into the ice cold river. It took about 30 seconds to get to the other side. Which is an extremely long time when the water is bone chilling. Out onto the other bank I walked, feet frozen I stood there dripping wet. As I am waited to put my socks back on the snow began to fall more heavily. Even though my feet were frozen stiff I managed to put my shoes back on and continue down the mountain.
That week in the sierras certainly tried me. It pushed me to new levels of discomfort I hadn’t know. I had to muster all of my will power to continue on in the face of the cold. I had to examine my own being and walk with this discomfort. We ended the section right near mammoth mountain, coming out at horse shoe lake. It was a 115 mile section which we did in 7 days.
I am currently in a small town called Markleeville, an 18 mile hitch from the trail. I am at mile 1048 on the PCT, still in heavy snow. It is just about 10:00am on Wednesday May 25th as I finish this post. I am heading back to trail momentarily.
Cheers, Elijah
