Not dead yet. I'm in Mammoth Lakes for two zero days. I've rented a car to run some errands, like going to the dentist and exchanging stuff from my storage unit in Bishop (45 minutes away). In my down time I'm usually just decompressing, since the hiking in the Sierra Nevada has been so taxing. And, well, I'm terrible at describing everything I've seen. I'm overwhelmed.
In the past 200 miles of trail I've been through eight or nine mountain passes at 11,000-13,000'. Almost all of my miles above 11,000' have been in snow. I've postholed knee-deep into freezing water wearing sneakers and socks, and gotten dry in a few hours of high altitude sun. I've caught and eaten trout from lakes at 10,000'. I've been drinking water straight from transparent streams, no treatment. I've forded creeks of snowmelt up to my waist, after which I'm gasping and doubled over from the cold shock. It's like a whole-body ice cream headache. I've watched hikers get knocked over by swift currents, briefly swimming as they grab a tree from the opposite shore.
I hiked to the summit of Mt. Whitney from the PCT. This was my third summit, and my first approach from the west side. My plan was to start at 12:15 am, anticipating a 5-hr ascent, in order to catch the sunrise. Isao from Japan said it sounded like climbing Mt. Fuji. He preferred to sleep. A few miles in, I spotted a pair of shining blue eyes ahead of me in the dark. I stood on a stump to make myself look bigger and started banging my ice axe to scare it off, but the eyes just smoothly moved while facing me. It wasn't a jumpy deer, plus the eyes were set too wide. A few minutes later I was met by Animal Style (Israel) and Jet Pack (USA). Safer in numbers, we continued up with our headlamps illuminating the snow. The summit was frigid with steady 20 mph winds, but the morning alpenglow was more than worth it. We piled into the summit hut, sharing whiskey, before heading back down.
The past two weeks have just been constant spectacular alpine terrain. Transparent lakes surrounded by walls of granite cut by white ribbon waterfalls. Raging ice blue rivers leaping over boulders. It's also been really hard. Hiking twenty miles here feels like thirty in the desert. Above 11,000', every step is labored. You just feel like there's always less gas.
Some people have been quitting. A German hiker wasn't handling the altitude well over some of the passes. He got off the trail at Bishop, caught a flight to LAX, and then to Frankfurt. One woman with a recent hip replacement was having trouble at Forester pass (earliest and one of the scariest passes). A couple of hikers helped her walk for four hours until she couldn't go on. One of them had a GPS beacon, and they SOS'd to get a helicopter to carry her out. Other hikers are just getting bored, 45-65 days of hiking was enough. I can't imagine quitting, just because my worst frigid morning waking up in the wilderness with fresh mosquito bites is still 100x better than waking up in my bed during a weekday. This is an incredible way to live.
In the past 200 miles of trail I've been through eight or nine mountain passes at 11,000-13,000'. Almost all of my miles above 11,000' have been in snow. I've postholed knee-deep into freezing water wearing sneakers and socks, and gotten dry in a few hours of high altitude sun. I've caught and eaten trout from lakes at 10,000'. I've been drinking water straight from transparent streams, no treatment. I've forded creeks of snowmelt up to my waist, after which I'm gasping and doubled over from the cold shock. It's like a whole-body ice cream headache. I've watched hikers get knocked over by swift currents, briefly swimming as they grab a tree from the opposite shore.
I hiked to the summit of Mt. Whitney from the PCT. This was my third summit, and my first approach from the west side. My plan was to start at 12:15 am, anticipating a 5-hr ascent, in order to catch the sunrise. Isao from Japan said it sounded like climbing Mt. Fuji. He preferred to sleep. A few miles in, I spotted a pair of shining blue eyes ahead of me in the dark. I stood on a stump to make myself look bigger and started banging my ice axe to scare it off, but the eyes just smoothly moved while facing me. It wasn't a jumpy deer, plus the eyes were set too wide. A few minutes later I was met by Animal Style (Israel) and Jet Pack (USA). Safer in numbers, we continued up with our headlamps illuminating the snow. The summit was frigid with steady 20 mph winds, but the morning alpenglow was more than worth it. We piled into the summit hut, sharing whiskey, before heading back down.
The past two weeks have just been constant spectacular alpine terrain. Transparent lakes surrounded by walls of granite cut by white ribbon waterfalls. Raging ice blue rivers leaping over boulders. It's also been really hard. Hiking twenty miles here feels like thirty in the desert. Above 11,000', every step is labored. You just feel like there's always less gas.
Some people have been quitting. A German hiker wasn't handling the altitude well over some of the passes. He got off the trail at Bishop, caught a flight to LAX, and then to Frankfurt. One woman with a recent hip replacement was having trouble at Forester pass (earliest and one of the scariest passes). A couple of hikers helped her walk for four hours until she couldn't go on. One of them had a GPS beacon, and they SOS'd to get a helicopter to carry her out. Other hikers are just getting bored, 45-65 days of hiking was enough. I can't imagine quitting, just because my worst frigid morning waking up in the wilderness with fresh mosquito bites is still 100x better than waking up in my bed during a weekday. This is an incredible way to live.
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