Day 76
Miles: 0
South lake Tahoe
Clear lakes, sand beaches, friends, root beer floats and sleeping in. I’m so tired I want to die. Feet feel terrible. Back on the trail tomorrow, wish I felt ready.
Day 75: friends
Day 75
Miles: 0
South Lake Tahoe
Rest day. I’m so tired I get the wobbles when I stand for too long, but J and I go climbing with Dan and Christina anyhow. That’s what top-ropes are for. It’s strange to try and move my body in the vertical direction. My arms are weak, surprise, surprise. My feet hurt like crazy all the time.
We’re taking tomorrow off too, hope I can pull it together.
Day 74: time for a break
Day 74
Miles: 7
Rock with a view to South Lake Tahoe
We wake up with a big ol’ view, then we have to hike back out of the bog. It goes better than hiking into it did. My shoes stank pretty bad before this, but now they smell like hiker feet AND swamp. Great combo.
We feel better than I expected, until we start walking… except we are still walking, so still better than expected. It’s a brutal seven miles of downhill.
Stumbling to the highway junction, we call up Teal. He had planned to rent a cabin in South Lake Tahoe with Tess for this week, and we’re hoping to get to spend some time hanging out, even if we aren’t hiking together anymore.
Teal picks us up and takes us home. It’s a vacation rental in town, and it’s huge. Showers, food, friends, beds. Teal and Tess stuff us with steak and crab legs. Dan and Christina drive out from Berkeley and join us, Dimples and Snake Eyes make it to town and join us too. I’m so tired I might die in my sleep. I’m going to take a couple days off.
Kind of an awkward pitch, but it did the trick last night.
Day 72: discouraged
Day 72
Miles: 24
From boulder creek to Pennsylvania creek
Up at a reasonable hour – it’s a relief every time I manage this. The trail takes us away from the creek, through sunny meadows heavy with scented, green air and yellow light. J stops and points at the ground, “bear”. The scat is black, looks fresh.
“Good thing we’re still doing bear-hangs. Maybe we should take them more seriously.”
“Probably!”
We’re still in granite country, but a huge basalt dome pops straight out of the ground next to the trail, rises up to a peak. We stop and stare, puzzled, then argue about how it probably formed for a while. I like to make up outrageous (but plausible) scenarios, then stand by them, hell or highwater. J does not approve.
Wildflowers and mountain peaks, whatever. I’m exhausted. J and I bicker about something or nothing – the sun is hot – the trail is steep. Lunchtime and a rally.
The granite whirls back to volcanics again, spires and ridges like the castle of an evil sorceress. When we’re almost to Ebbetts Pass and the highway crossing, J says, “do you think there will be trail magic there?”
“Ha, if only every highway crossing we get to, there will be a taco truck and cooler of ice cream.”
“Shouldn’t get my hopes up. I probably shouldn’t just go around expecting for strangers to give me things.”
“Probably.”
Even so, when we get to the highway and there’s nothing, we’re both terribly disappointed. We sit down on the side of the road to feel sorry for ourselves and eat some snacks. We sit for a while. We’re thinking about getting up when a truck stops in the pullout. “Do you think the back of his truck is full of strawberries, and he’s coming to give us some?”
“Uh, no,” J replies.
“Are you sure? I think he’s coming to give us strawberries.” But when the guy gets out of his truck and starts walking towards us carrying a box, I’m as surprised as anybody.
“You want some V8? Is this a good place to leave it, do you think the other hikers will find it?”
“Uh, yeah. Of course!” We tell him, a bit surprised.
“I was out volunteering for the death ride today, we have all these extra V8s. Thought you might enjoy them.”
“Yeah, we can always use more vegetables. Thanks!”
“No problem!” the guy says add he leaves.
“Ha! How about that! You asked for trail magic, and the trail delivered!” I say to J. “And is it that obvious that we’re thru-hikers? He didn’t even ask. Are we that dirty?”
“I think we are.”
The guy went back to his truck, but he’s coming back. “Do you guys drink beer?”
“Yes!” Says J.
The guy takes out three beers from a small cooler and tosses them in the box with the V8s. “Drink what you want, or leave it for the next hikers!”
“Thanks man!”
He takes off, we sit and laugh, drink V8s till we’re silly. I don’t even like V8. When we’re sloshing with liquid tomatoes we get up to go. We’ve only made it 100 yards when we find a cooler, marked: trail magic. More trail magic! It’s stocked by Meadow Mary, with sodas, cookies, apples!
“What?” I yell. “MORE trail magic?” We laugh and laugh, eat apples and cookies and drink Coca-Colas till we’re mostly liquid, full of vegetables and sugar and bubbles, then slosh down the trail.
We slosh past beautiful lakes that we can’t stop at – too many miles to go. We slosh past more spires and towers and rugged peaks – too many miles to go. Past wildflowers and cedars on cliffs and sunsets, pass, pass, pass. My feet feel like they’ve been beaten with hammers and my hipbones scream, but we keep going. Thru-hiking, man. It’s making me crazy.
We stop at the first water in a while, where another thru-hiker is camped. She introduces herself as Blue Butterfly – a solo female hiker, 67 years old. This is what tough looks like (unassuming, in quikdry clothes). We talk about the trail for a minute. She didn’t see the bear scat today, just the bear! Then we commiserate about the toll it’s taking on us. We are both so discouraged, so tired, so worn down.
“Hold it, hold it, hold it!” J interrupts. “How many miles did you hike today,” he asks, turning to Blue Butterfly.
“Twenty-one.”
“And you’ve done twenty-four,”.He says, turning to me. “Of course you’re tired! You’re hiking crazy miles! But you’re doing it! You both need to cut this sh*t out!”
Blue Butterfly and I look at each other sheepishly. He’s right. We’re tired, but we’re doing it, doing this, this thru-hike. Maybe we should just be proud of ourselves…
We leave Blue Butterfly to hike another mile to the next creek, where we find a beautiful camping spot, all to ourselves. We finally did the twenty-four miles that I wanted us to do all the other days. It feels good (and even better to be sitting down). Tomorrow is my birthday, and although we won’t make it town, we’ve decided to do a birthday challenge: twenty-nine miles for my 29th birthday. The crux will be getting up on time. Maybe I’ve got this.
Bear scat
Getting water
Wildflowers are off the hook!
Trail magic
Day 70: things turn around
Day 70
Miles: 21.5
From falls creek to Emigrant wilderness
No fish, lost flies, popped squeeze bladder, spilled dinner, burned windshirt, not enough miles,fogs of mosquitoes, tired feet, raw hipbones… and a leaky air mattress to top off the night. I wake up on the ground, cold and achey. Bad night’s sleep. I hope this isn’t a trajectory. I might not make it 1000 miles.
No point getting up early with this kind of luck. My exhaustion is sitting on me like a 200lb man. Or perhaps like several: one for each of the passes. I’m so tired. I feel stretched – thin. My pants are sagging badly at the waist, but it’s not just my butt that’s disappearing. My motivation is thin, my energy is thin, the thread of this journey, the thing that’s pulling me forwards – it’s thin too, pulling out like taffy. I do not know if I can do this trail. I will give it everything, but I do not know if I will have enough to give. I’ve given my pound(s) of flesh, will this take bone?
We finally get going. J is sick of being hustled and having my neuroticism passed onto him – we hike off in two separate sulks.
Around eleven we come up on Dorothy Lake, like a vision of miles past. The lake lies shimmering under ice carved ridges and spires. The water reflects the black shadows of the thunderheads building to the north – hovering at the meeting of blue skies behind us and black skies ahead. I repack my entire pack using a trash bag as a liner.
The thunder rolling ahead of us makes us nervous as we scurry across Dorothy Pass, but the weather holds. Suddenly we’ve passed the sign that marks the end boundary of Yosemite National Park. That’s it. The High Sierra is behind us. Of all the parts of the trail, that section is the one I worried about the most, prepared for the most, thought about the most… just like that it’s over. It’s strange to have things behind us, instead of feeling the length of the entire trail still reaching out before us. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at that, with a thousand miles under our belts. Just like that, we’re standing at the 1000 mile mark.
1000 miles! Not even halfway.
We’re hardly out of Yosemite and the rocks change. Goodbye granite… there’s a huge bear claw mark across a tree, so I point it out to J. J? Where’d he go? I wait. I wait. I start freaking out, and do the unthinkable: walk south. I finally find J five minutes later. He’d gotten distracted at the contact between the granite and the calcareous meta-seds.
Half an hour later, I’ve lost him again. At least, I think I have. I just stopped to look at this little waterfall next to the trail, then came back out to wait for J. I thought he was only a few minutes behind me, so he should be here by now. I walk back on the trail a bit – no sign of him. I walk forward – no sign. Did he pass me in the minute I was off trail? Does he think he’s behind me still? I walk back again, this time looking for his tracks, but it’s all gravel. I walk forward, doing my best Sherlock Holmes impression, nose to the ground, until I convince myself that I’ve found his footprints. So he is ahead of me!
I think.
I feel panic rising. If he thinks he’s ahead of me, I’ll never catch him, we’ll both be running down the trail after each other. If I’m wrong, and he’s still behind me, I could be running away from him. I start booking it down the trail, eyes for nothing but footprints, J’s footprints. It rained up here earlier today, so the trail is really fresh, and I know I’m following a pair of Merrell Moabs, but Merrells are really popular shoes. “Dammit J,” I shout out loud, “wait for me! You haven’t seen my footprints in two miles, I know it!” I’m wearing a pair of Salomon crossmax shoes, and my tread is far more distinctive. I run, then walk slowly, torn between catching up with him, or letting him catch up with me. I cry and rage, worried and frustrated. I’ve been hustling J all day, bugging him to go faster – he probably thinks I’ve ditched him.
At what point do I stop and wait? If we both decide to stop and wait, we won’t find each that way either. J doesn’t even have maps for this area. The next water coming up, a little creek, it’s the last water for ten miles. I told that to J before we were separated, now I’m hoping he’s remembered. “Wait for me at the water, please!” I shout to the silent, dripping trees. If he’s not there, I’ll wait for him, long as it takes.
I come around the corner, to where the creek crosses the trail, and I see him. “J! J!” He opens his arms and catches me up, where I cry again, this time in relief. “You got ahead of me but I was behind you I was following your footprints why didn’t you wait for me I’ve been so worried I’m so glad I found you!” I blurt out all at once.
He explains his end – like I thought, he thought I was ahead of him, that I had ditched him. He’d been practically running down the trail trying to catch up with me. After while he realized he hadn’t seen any of my footprints in a long time and started freaking out himself. He’d made it to the last water and I wasn’t there. He’d left a note and gone ahead – no sign of me. He was on his way to look back down the trail when I got there.
“Let’s not get separated ever again ever,” I tell him, still holding onto him.
“Yeah, let’s stay cheek-to-cheek for a while.” We’ve been driving each other a little bit crazy, but separation is worse.
The entire episode took an hour. “Worst hour of this trip yet,” J says.
I’m all frazzled still, but at least we made good time, right? We grab some water and start the switchbacks out of the valley. The sheer granite of Yosemite has been replaced with big basaltic cones with huge, smooth, brown sides. We climb the trail, a flat groove notched into the slope of talus, up, up.
It’s getting dark as we reach the top. There’s a man there, nothing but a tank top and running shorts and a small camelbak. What is he doing out here?
He turns out to be the support crew for Joe McConaughey (String Bean), the guy trying to break the PCT speed record this year. “He’s doing 44 miles a day right now,” he tells us. “He’d really like to do 45, but that last mile is just really tough, you know?”
“Yeah,” we agree. “That last mile is tough for us too.” Of course, for us the difference is between 19 and 20 miles, but kind of the same.
It’s super steep up here, but I’d really like to camp. We discover a flat spot on a little saddle below the peaks, right at the timberline, where the trees grow bent over, windblown into shrubberies. We’re on the rim of a huge valley, lakes down below, the peaks of Yosemite, King’s Canyon, Sequoia, all stretching back in row after row of jagged spires and snow. The rainclouds of earlier have lifted and broke, and the setting sun drops beneath them to light up the entire place in incendiary hues. This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. This is the most beautiful place we’ve seen, here on the PCT.
“The universe was testing us, and we passed! Now it’s rewarding us!”
“Gizmo, the universe is not personally interested in you,” J shoots me down.
“Yes it is!” I laugh, buoyant, undeterred. “Look at this!” I sweep my arms around. I don’t really care the universe cares or not – this moment is perfect. Everything is perfect, is worth it. 1000 miles to end up here.
Dorothy Lake. Guess which way we’re headed…
1000 miles.
The waterfall I stopped to look at.
Bears in these woods.
Day 68: hard walking
Day 68
Miles: 18
Meadow with rock to Volunteer Peak
We’ve only just got back on trail when we run into two other PCT hikers taking a break. There’s a third pack next to them – “that’s our buddy’s pack,” they explain. “He forgot his wallet at camp.”
“That’s the smallest pack I’ve ever seen!” I exclaim. “Is his food in there?”
“Yeah, that’s everything. His base weight is six pounds.”
“Six pounds?!”
“Yeah. He’s hungry and cold a lot.” They pause. “He doesn’t like it when we tell people that though.”
J and I laugh. Having a tiny pack doesn’t get you any trail cred if you’re miserable all the time.
I have a sneaking suspicion that most super-ultra-lighters are hungry and cold a lot, but will never admit it.
The two hikers we’re talking to do not fall into that category. The dude tells us that his base weight is 33lbs – four of which come from the didgeridoo strapped to his pack. Huh. If I were to give myself a four lb musical instrument allowance, I think I’d pick something with a wider range. But, 6lbs, 33lbs, or 15lbs(my base weight), here we all are, coming up on 1000 miles.
It’s more granite and forest with every mile. I feel like we’re on a slow taper out of Kings Canyon – still beautiful, but easing up on the overwhelming spectacular. The huge ups and downs have turned into small ups and downs, the sheer cliffs only a rocky giant’s playground. Hard walking.
A small lake – Miller’s lake – calls our name. Blue, almost warm, thronged with bright blue damselflies. For once, for a minute, the mosquitoes let us be.
By afternoon, it’s the same ol’, same ol’ behind on miles, hard walking. I can feel myself being increasingly neurotic about miles, and I hustle J all day, hustle myself, walk faster, walk faster, walk faster, walk faster! I can’t walk any faster! I’m exhausted. This section of trail is brutal.
“Why is this section so hard?” I bemoan to J.
“Don’t you remember the Davids telling us that this is probably the hardest section of the entire trail?”
“I think I missed that memo.”
I’ve gotten it now though. Holy smokes.
At three in the afternoon we come out on the ridge over Matterhorn valley. I’ve seen this valley before, I’m sure of it – perhaps in the book of fairytales I read as a child. This is where the Enchanted Kingdom lies… too bad that’s not where we’re going. No time to waste, we should be walking faster.
We pass Smedburg lake in the late afternoon. Lots of hikers setting up camp. “There’s room over here,” calls out a fellow hiker.
“We’re going to do two more miles,” we reply. Two of the worst, hardest, rockiest, steepest miles yet. Why do I always need to do two more miles?
The setting sun shines off the glacier polish, lights up Volunteer Peak, which is behind us now. Only 18 miles today. We’re going to run out of food if we don’t start hiking faster. Maybe tomorrow.
Glacier polished porphyritic granite
Volunteer Peak
Day 66: rainy day
Day 66
Miles: zero
Tuolumne Meadows
We posted a note for Bluesman on the Tuolumne Meadows campground message board, but no sign of him yet. We’re not entirely sure if he’s ahead of us or behind – we think he got caught up in Mammoth. It would be great to see him again before he gets off trail for ten days. Who knows if we will ever meet up?
At the campground, the groomed, lovely, and stylish climbers pack up and head back to Berkeley. Dan and Christina hang out a little longer. We had discussed going climbing, but we’re exhausted and Christina is ill. And it’s raining. It’s nice to have a day that’s not all business, that’s slow, that’s unrushed. We meant to take care of all sorts of business today, but a recent rockslide took out the cell towers and landlines so we’re off the hook. I buy a postcard for my mother at Tuolumne Meadows store and get in line for the Post Office, where a queue of dirty hikers are holding their postcards for their mothers. Don’t want to have Search and Rescue chasing you.
Dan and Christina don’t get to stay for the entire day, which is a disappointment. It’s so nice to see old friends.
I first met Dan and Christina a couple years ago, on a climbing trip to Joshua Tree. Dan was getting ready to launch a kickstarter campaign to produce a rechargeable headlamp (at the time, there weren’t really any on the market from the big name brands). He was able to get fully funded, get his headlamp produced, and launch his company, . J and I are using Bosavi headlamps for our thru-hike. Super lightweight, super bright, and no AA batteries for the trash.
Despite being a beautiful product, without a big name behind him, Dan has not been able to get his headlamps stocked at any of the big outdoor gear stores (REI, I’m looking at you). The company was doing ok, and then everything went up in flames.
Big, redwood timber, tarpitch roof flames. The warehouse with all the production equipment, designs, tools, and extra stock was burnt to the ground when one of the other tenants left a pile of oily rags sitting in a corner. One little spontaneous combustion, next thing you know, all your hard work is little lumps of char. The metal tools melted to the floor.
The bad news is that Bosavi will never produce another headlamp. The good news is that part of the inventory was stored off-site, and there are 400 of rev 2.0 Bosavi . I think they’re a great product – can’t think of a better endorsement than taking it on a thru-hike – so if you need a headlamp, check it out.
Once Dan and Christina take off, I take the book that we acquired yesterday, sit down at the picnic table, and don’t move for the rest of the day. It feels like the lap of luxury.
It’s almost dark when we hear someone walk up to the campsite and call our names. It’s Lapis! We’ve been crossing paths since Big Bear. She saw our note for Bluesman on the message board and came to find us. She joins us at the site for the night. I suppose tomorow we will have to finally do our resupply chores and walk out of here, but I’ve got one more night to rest.
Day 65: the stone staircase
Day 65
Miles: 22
From Ansel Adams wilderness to Tuolomne Meadows
Fell asleep hard last night, but I’m still tired. I’m tired all the time now. I sort of thought I’d be used to this? That my body would catch up? Instead, it seems like every time I get a little stronger that the trail gets a little harder. I hoped my new shoes would help, but after a one-day reprieve it was straight back to foot pain. Blast.
Our morning takes us up and past Thousand Island Lake. It’s beautiful, in classic High Sierra fashion: white mountains, pink flowers, green trees, blue lake. We crossed into the Ansel Adams wilderness area yesterday, and I’ve been thinking about his photos, and how he could hold the soul of this place on a black and white print, this place of blue green white.
We’ve got our last pass of note coming up, Donahue Pass, then onto Tuolomne Meadows. Onto a real day off! Maybe with just a real day off I won’t be so tired anymore. Maybe I won’t feel so thin.
Up and over Island Pass, which I didn’t realize was a pass, or that I was crossing it, until just now, where the sign marks it. I keep thinking we’re going to be out of the high country for good, but the smooth, glacier-polished land of marmots and green grass and knife-edged peaks reappears. The pass is a wild tumble of boulders and stone, with a trail blasted and built into an infernal stone staircase, with every step either too high or too short or too long or too shallow. “Right or left?” I ask J, pointing at the ridgeline. “Which I’ve do you think is the pass?”
“Right.”
“Really? I thought left.”
It is left. For someone used to looking at rocks, J has maintained an astonishing record of zero correct guesses on the passes.
Up at the top another hiker hails us: “Welcome to Yosemite!” We’ve made it to the park. J and I sit down next to a teeny melt lake for lunch. There are two guys, David and David, eating there as well, and next thing you know we’re chatting about gear. I love talking gear. It drives J crazy. I can’t help it. If he’d ever been to a reunion with my dad’s family he’d know why. Talking gear is what I was born to do… Even if the gear in question is poop trowels and butt wipes. (Of course I carry butt wipes! A little heavier, sure, but you don’t need ’em until you do!)
A David pawns off his book on J. He wanted a new book, but maybe not a hardback. As we leave the same David tells us – “when you get to the waterfalls beyond Tuolomne, tell it hello for me. It’s where I was baptized by the universe!”
Down Donahue Pass turns out to be a different endeavor from up. Much longer, for one thing. Endless, to be more exact. Unending. Brutal. They must have built this trail in the thirties, because there surely has been no other time since when backbreaking physical labor has come so cheap, so abundant, as to even imagine what they have done here. Miles and miles of carefully built stone stairs, hand cut, hand blasted, hand laid. I don’t even appreciate it, this rocky stumbling ground of stairs that are, every one, the wrong size.
The downhill is endless, but somehow passes. It always does. We begin the second infinite section of the day, the flat, easy walk along the Lyell River to Tuolomne Meadows and friends and rest. It’s a storybook meadow, a green corridor between forested mountains, a wide, blue meander winding through. For nine miles. Easy, if the entire High Sierra hadn’t come first.
Tuolomne Meadows is a teeming tent city. Fourth of July weekend. I thought the JMT section of the trail felt crowded, this is a metropolis! We make our way, limping, the message board. J’s long-time friends Dan and Christina should be here to meet us, and hopefully they left a note.
“Hey!” Hollers a car behind us.
“Dan!” J hollers back. We found them!
Dan and Christina live in Berkeley, and they’re here camping with a big crew of climbing friends. Everyone is fit, strong, stylish, clean. I feel like a schlub, a dirty, tired one. They welcome us and feed us all the same. I’m so glad I don’t have to walk anywhere tomorrow.
Thousands Island Lake
Coming down Donahue Pass
Whose idea was this??
The Lyell River
Day 64: a holiday
Day 63: afternoon push
Day 63
Miles: 26
To Red’s Meadow
Over silver pass
The big passes, as I like to think of them, are all over, but the little ones remain. (Only 10,000 feet? Not impressed.) So up and over Silver pass. It may not be a big pass, but I’m feeling tired nonetheless. Always tired.
Silver Lake, Lake Virginia, Purple Lake – all are a brilliant blue. Now we’re leaving the land of the lakes, into the trees, a quiet, dry forest walk.
If we do 26 miles tonight, we’ll make it to Red’s Meadow. Our maps say: free hot springs showers. I hike faster and think: free hot springs showers. Ice cream. A burger. Hike faster. The day is a blur of trees and hiking faster.
The landmarks on our map begin to have very volcanic sounding names: crater creek, red mountain. It all becomes clear when a giant cinder cone appears in view. It’s shocking to see rock that isn’t granite, isn’t white. Do rocks come in other colors?? I wonder what burblings of magma, what gyrations of stone, conspired to conjure up this black cone.
Coming down off a huge ridge, we look across a valley and see miles of downed trees. “Do these trees all look like they were blown over to you?” I ask J.
“Blown over? They look like they were ripped straight out of the ground!”
Giant trees, roots ripped straight out. All the trees have fallen in the same direction. Are there tornadoes here?
A day of natural mysteries. I don’t care. I just want a shower. J and I stumble into Red’s Meadow dirty and exhausted.
The cafe is closed. The showers are not free, and they are closed. The store’s sign says it is closed too, but the proprietor is still there, and he sells us canned soup, ice cream bars, and soda. So there’s that.
The campground is another half-mile, so we limp to it. We had heard there was free camping, but we can’t find it, only pay sites. Another hiker finds us standing there, sad and confused, and takes us back to his site. It’s a group of JMT hikers. They’re only supposed to have six people per site, and we make it seven. “You guys are pretty unified, right?”
“Totally unified.”
They are unpacking their food drops, and we inherit larabars and drink mix and snacks.
We were planning on going into Mammoth to resupply, but we packed too much food out of Bishop. Between what we still have, what we’ve just inherited, and what we can buy at the store, we’ll easily make it to Tuolomne Meadows. It would be fun to celebrate the Fourth of July in town, but we’re trying to meet J’s friends who will be in tuolomne for the weekend. So we’ll hike instead.
I sure wish I’d gotten to take a shower today…
Silver Lake
Lake Virginia
Purple Lake
(Phone is out of battery 🙁 )