Day 51: Independence

8 miles into town! Another crazy town day, this time in Independence. There was a trail angel waiting to take people into town in the Onion Valley trail head parking lot. Independence is very small but it has a motel with a bunk house with hiker rates ($25) and they do your laundry for you. I had a nice fresh Greek salad at the only restaurant open in town and an ice cream from the gas station and goldfish crackers again, so delicious!

Day 47

8 miles, camped at 753, 11286 feet

Tom the trail angel (who I've actually met three times now) happened to be passing through Lone Pine and gave us a ride back to the trail head. 

 There is water everywhere!! It's awesome!

We met Sweeper in camp who is the same guy Emily's mom gave a ride to Lake Isabela 9 days ago. It's a very windy camp spot but it was slim pickings for good spots today and I had to make do. It took three tries to set up the tarp up, and it still didn't play well with the wind, very frustrating. Frogs are croaking down the ridge from here.

Day 50: Forester Pass

13.7 miles
We started a bit late (I needed the sleep), around 8 am with a stream crossing and climbing up a meadow with deer into a rocky valley with icey pools and water running down the trail. I lost count of the number of snow fields we crossed. Looked like wet feet all day.

Alex and T-Rex

 Forrester pass! The highest point on the pct! 13100ish. Not that sketchy at all really. It was a more exhilarating than scary. We met some hikers on the other side of the pass glaciating down a hundred feet or so

Snow chute on Forester Pass

 They showed us how it was done and we joined the pack of hikers whooping and hollering down the north side of the pass. The whole valley was full of cheers and laughter and very happy hikers. The snow was perfect all day, not quite yet a post holing disaster and not super icy either. If you fell you just kind of plopped and didn't slide. I postholed a few times today but it wasn't often enough to be frustrating and it was warm enough out that wet feet weren't miserable.

 We stopped at Lake at mile 780.8 at 12044 feet after doing 6 miles and jumped in next to a nice blue iceberg, then ate some lunch, dried our socks and sat around for a while.

The water is as warm as it looks...

Post holing is extra fun when you post hole right into a snow melt river!

The trail dropped down into a breathtaking valley, so lush and green and full of pretty little streams that made me think about  dinosaurs and gingerbread houses.

 The mosquitos were massive and ruthless all evening. I discovered my windpants and wind jacket are mosquito proof which is awesome and makes life in a horde of mosquitoes much better. They were so thick I had to be careful not to inhale too quickly or they'd end up in my mouth/nose (which did happen, gross).

Green Bean said there was a bear here last night

Day 49: Mt Whitney

20 miles

I got about 2 hours of sleep because I had to pee twice before my alarm went off at 23:30. I packed up and hit the trail at 23:55, five minutes before the rest of the group. I was sure they would catch up to me shortly. The full moon was high in the sky and it was so bright I could walk without using my head lamp (except in a few shadowy corners). There are 93 switchbacks to the summit of Mt Whitney and more than a few snow fields which made following the trail a bit tricky in a few spots. Over all it wasn't a particularly difficult walk, it was mostly just me and the moon. And me singing 'Hey Moon' by Molly Nilsson to the moon, it seemed appropriate since no one ever caught up to me. I was the first person to reach the summit (at 3:10). Twenty minutes later, Red Beard and Special Ops showed up. They were able to get the door to the summit shelter open and Special Ops made some hot coffee that we passed  around as we layered up, pulled out sleeping bags to hunker down in to keep warm until sunrise. Pizza Beans, Sky and V-Dub arrived shortly after. Pizza Beans made a large pot of hot tea. It was wonderful. When the horizon started to look a tiny bit lighter, we found a good sized ledge to cram onto out of the wind. We huddled together on sleeping pads and in sleeping bags to keep warm. As the horizon brightened  and the clouds changed hue, We guessed which peak the sun would pop up from behind. Finally the sun rose and the mountains lit up all around us. The summit cast a massive shadow near the setting full moon. It was an incredibly magical morning that felt very special, perfect weather, full moon and the summer solstice sunrise from the highest point in the lower 48. Amazing.

Pizza Beans, Red Beard, V-Dub, (Can't remember)

A few more hikers showed up a little later and it was time to go. I left the summit at about 6:30 AM and passed a ton of hikers on their way up, a funny mouse thing called a Pika and at the lower elevations many flowers I hadn't seen in the dark. I picked up my stove and tarp from guitar lake (which is overrun with very bold marmots) and got back to Crabtree around 11 AM, happy but exhausted.

I rested a bit, filtered water, ate and stretched and then Emily and I set off to do another 9 miles to set up the next day to hit Forester pass in morning before the snow got too slushy.

V-Dub and her Staff

Very, very long day and I was incredibly pooped by the end of it. 20 miles in 21 hours, only 3 of those were below 11000 feet, on two hours of sleep. When I got to camp I ate dinner and went immediately to bed. I don't remember ever being so tired but incredibly fulfilled in my life.