Adjusting to a New Section

The Start of Section H: Crabtree Meadow to Tuolumne Meadow

Charles and I are now 788.5 miles down the trail. Even though our mileage hasn’t progressed too much since my last post, our last five days were very exciting. Section H is also very long, at about 175 miles, so I’m breaking it up into at least two stories.

The theme of these last five days has been adjusting and adapting. Charles pointed out that we’re in the learning stage of the Sierra Nevada. In the desert we had to lea to manage the heat, long water carries, and wind events. Now we have new elements including elevation, water crossings, and snow/ice. These past few days were a little stressful trying to decide on the best plan, but we’re slowly figuring it out.

Days fifty-three through fifty-eight were zero days. We originally planned to take four, but with logistics we ended up taking six. Charles successfully hitchhiked from Arizona to Lone Pine in a day and half, which was an adventure in itself.

We didn’t start trying to hitch for a ride until the afternoon of zero number six, so no one was going up to Horseshoe Meadows. Charles talked to a guy named Jeff, who offered to take us up part way to De La Cour Ranch to spend the night and then we could hitch in the morning. Jeff was a PCT hiker last year who fell in love with the ranch and now works there. We helped out with feeding some horses and chickens. There were also two adorable dogs, Sweetie and Mr. Tibbs.

Day fifty-nine we got a ride the rest of the way up the mountain. We hiked up through Cottonwood Pass and stopped at Chicken Spring Lake once on the trail. We also entered Sequoia National Park shortly after arriving back on the PCT. The elevation was a bit of a shock (we were hiking above 10,000 feet) and I felt pretty tired for most of the day. On top of that, I was also feeling homesick after just visiting with my parents. High altitude, steep hills, and homesickness make for a bit of an emotional day.

We camped at the turn off for Crabtree Meadow. We had planned to hike Mt. Whitney the next morning, but instead we decided to wait a day to acclimate to the elevation.

Day sixty was nice and easy. We only hiked about three and a half miles on the side trail up Mt. Whitney to Guitar Lake. The lake is a popular spot to camp the night before summiting Mt. Whitney.

The lake is absolutely beautiful with jagged mountains rising up around the sides. Charles and I both took a quick dip in the lake (it was really cold!), which felt refreshing. We also started to see marmots wandering amongst the rocks and investigating camp sites.

Day sixty-one we woke up at 1:00AM to start our hike up Mt. Whitney and to catch the sunrise at the top. It was a cold and difficult hike up to the top. I had to stop a few times due to mild altitude sickness, but I never wanted to stop for long because I would get too cold! Charles was the best hiking partner, offering encouragement at every switchback. There were a few sections on the trail with snow, but nothing terrible.

We got to the top just a few minutes before the sunrise and it did not disappoint. The mountains were absolutely spectacular; I will never tire of the views. We sat in our sleeping bags to warm up and waited for the sun to warm us. It was so cold our water bottles started to freeze. There were also adorable little birds flying around at the top that I could just imagine saying, “Oh hello, we did Mt. Whitney this morning too!”

We head back down around after a little over and hour. Once heading down the mountain, the PCT is mostly following along with the John Muir Trail. We got to see all the views that we missed on the the way up due to the dark. We also saw a few people that we haven’t seen for a couple hundred miles.

We made it back to our tents and napped briefly before packing up camp. Our plan was to hike as far as we could that afternoon toward Forester Pass. We camped at another small lake for the night.

Day sixty-two was the hike up Forester Pass, the tallest point on the PCT at 13,124 feet. We were a bit nervous and not sure what to expect. We woke up at 3:00AM to ice covering our gear. We had been reading posts on our Guthooks app of people who hiked through the pass previously recommending an early start so the snow is still frozen.

We had to cross Tyndall Creek around 5:00AM and unfortunately had to walk through the last section. We went through without socks, but of course our feet still were wet and cold. Charles tried to change his socks before the switchbacks leading up to the pass, but could only get one shoe off because the other shoelace had frozen.

The most difficult part of the climb was right at the beginning. We had to hike up snow to get to the trail. Walking across the snow of the chute was not nearly as bad as I thought. Charles going across the chute is probably one of the funniest things I’ve seen on the trip so far.

The view at the top and down the other side was absolutely beautiful. We had to hike on snow part of the way down. We were treated to views of the mountains, half frozen lakes, and snow melt creeks. Probably the cutest thing I’ve seen so far is two little birds that looked like they were ice skating on one of the half frozen lakes.

At this point we had entered Kings Canyon National Park. It was such a beautiful hike for the rest of the afternoon. We camped at Vidette Meadow and enjoyed talking with a guy we met a Chicken Spring Lake. He attempted the PCT last year, but skipped the Sierra due to all the snow.

Day sixty-three we only had one and half miles in the PCT before taking a seven and a half mile trail down to Onion Valley. We passed Bullfrog lake and had a steep hike up to Kearsarge Pass (11,760 feet). From there we had a beautiful overlook of all the lakes we just passed. We had a four and a half mile descent down winding switchbacks through the John Muir Wilderness. We caught two separate rides to Independence and then hitchhiked to Bishop. The couple that picked us up hiked the John Muir Trail in 2014.

Day sixty-four is a zero day relaxing in Bishop. Bishop has a small theater showing only two movies at a time. Last night we saw “Ocean’s 8” and tonight we’re going to see “Solo.”

Charles’ Section

*I was feeling lazy, so I just copied this from Facebook*

Sometimes on the PCT you get to do cool things, like:

-Climb the tallest peak in the continental US

-Wake up at 1am to catch the sunrise on said peak

-Walk through a raging “creek” at 4:30am and have your shoes freeze to the point where you can’t even get them off

-Climb the tallest mountain pass on trail at over 13,00 feet

-Wake up at 3am to ensure good snow conditions on said mountain pass

-Use microspikes and an ice axe to ensure you don’t slide all the way down a mountain (also because they look cool)

And sometimes you get to do all this in a 48 hour span. The Sierras have been eventful, to say the least.