Today is a light day, fortunately.    Yesterday worked me pretty hard.   Plan is to get over Pinchot and chill.   Since we hiked in late last night, I figured I should take a pic of where I ended up. 

We camped next to a pedestrian suspension bridge over Woods Creek.   Walking over this thing was kind of interesting.   I just charged it at normal hiking pace.  The floor started bouncing higher and higher and toward the middle I was getting thrown around pretty good.   Hmm…time to slow down and hold on to the cables.    

 Other side of the bridge was climb time. 

The trail followed a river on the way up.   That seems to be the theme with each of these passes.   Creek/River valley on the way up, then another on the way down.  

The creek crossings were a little sketchy.   For example: 

Passed a final small lake, then it was just rocks and snow to the pass.

The only thing interesting after this was a game of guess where-the-pass-is.  

The pass is a little over 12k.   Took the require pics from the top and headed down. 

I took my time on this climb up and down.   Did a couple long chow breaks and chatted up various hikers.   Found a loose group of youngsters hiking the JMT Northbound.   Andrew, Megan, and some other gal.   Figured I might see them again.

Rolled into the camp site around 5ish.   There were two sites.  One large one that could fit 10+ tents and another smaller one by the river.  

The big one had a single group of 10+ hiking couples all setup.  They had their tents scattered all over, had their bear cans around the fire pit, and a big clothes line up to dry stuff.   All the gals were in their tents and the guys were milling around trying dissuade newcomers from staying there.   

These guys were super douche bags.   Soho rolled up while I was talking to them and we both decided that we were going to stay their.   We found a spot they failed to scatter their crap on and setup.

They ignored us, but that’s when the fun started.   Turns out there was group of 10+ donkeys nearby.   I suspect they were carrying all these people’s crap around.   Well the pack leader let them wonder around the valley to graze so for most of the night donkeys were wandering around the camp eating.   Every once in a while the pack leader would ride by ringing a cow bell to move them away from camp.   That would set off a stamped of donkeys chasing after him.  

Soho and I spent the evening listening to some clown going on about the delicious dinner he was preparing for everyone while watching donkeys hoping they’d take a dump next to somebody’s tent.   After we turned in there was another cowbell/stamped around 10.   Scared the crap out of me.   Heard some gal complaining to her BF about it, so that was satisfying.  

Just 12 miles today.  Got some work to do tomorrow.  

Soho and I planned a big day today.   But first we needed to eat a couple excellent breakfast burritos that the manager offered to cook for us in the morning.   He is a trained chef who, for various reasons, is helping his Mom run the place for a time.   The burritos are worth the wait.   

Filled up at 8, we walked over to the road leading up the Onion Valley trailhead.    This is the one we popped out of a couple days ago.   Unfortunately it is a ~15 mile ride up there.   It is a dead end road, so we figured it was going to be a long wait.   We setup under a tree and waited.   Turns out a local saw us walking down the street, so he finished up his coffee, jumped in his SUV and drove over to offer us a ride.   

He was a really great guy.   He’s a construction consultant doing some gig in Independence.   Wouldn’t accept money for gas.  He just wanted to know our story.   Took an hour out of his day to do this.  Total kindness.  

So it was back to work around 9ish.    First we had to do 8 miles to get back to the trail up over Kearsarge pass again (around 11k), then up and over Glen pass (~12k), then back down to a decent camping spot.   It is going to be a big day 20 miles and 5k+ of ascending.  

On the way up I met an Australian couple who was doing a day hike with their toddler.   The guy was hauling the kid in kiddie backpack contraption.   They were all gungho to get to the top.   They passed me after the lake heading toward the heavens.  

When I reached the top, Soho was up there having a snack with some other hikers.  The Aussies made it.   Their toddler was wondering around trying to fall off the rocks.   He had a cookie in his hand that he kept dropping in the dirt.   Soon it was poopie diaper time.

 After that entertainment, I hit the trail for the next couple miles to intersect the PCT.    Easy stuff.   Ran into a couple of pack trains coming out of a resupply stops.    Talked to one of the leaders for a bit.   He’s been doing this for years.   Apparently many of the JMT’ers don’t want to do the work of hiking out Kearsarge, so they buy a service that packs their food resupply in to meet them on the trail.  Costs $400 per person, but gets cheaper with larger groups.   I don’t think PCT’ers bother with this stuff.   

Back on the trail again, it was time to mount the assault on Glenn.   

The approach to Glen turned out to be meh.   Not very interesting.  Fortunately it was only a 1300 foot climb from the intersection. 

Here you can see a couple of hikers on the pass.   There was a small snow field to climb, but it wasn’t too bad. 

Got over this thing around 4:30.   Soho was up there milling around.   Fortunately, the other side was the much more scenic Rae lakes.  

Ran into a few folks fishing the lake.   They all said they fish were hitting.    At 10k though, they were the size of a big sardine.   Not much fight in a sardine.    

Each lake had outlets that fed the other below it.   The trail followed these outlets all the way down.   

Eventually the trail jumped into another canyon which was populated by a bunch of small stream crossings.   It was getting late but still had another 4 miles to get to the camp site.  I put on the headlamp and stumbled through the darkness until 10:30.   Tent up, choked down some food, and crashed.  

It was a hard day.   We figured around 20 miles total with the Kearsarge bit + the trail miles, only 12 were PCT miles.    Maybe next time I’ll hire the donkeys.     

 

Soho and I decided to take the day off and relax a bit.    I spent most of the day eating and updating this blog.    Back on the trail tomorrow.  Next stop is VVR, then hiking to Tuolumne Meadows.   Going to be 150 miles of the best that the High Sierra has to offer.    Will have a lot of writing to do !

 

For most folks hiking the Sierras, you have to do at least one side hike out to get resupplied.   The stretch is too long to do in one go and many folks opt for the Kearsarge Pass route.   It is an 8 mile hike out to the Onion Valley Trailhead where we pray for a hitch.   

Fortunately, it is eclipse day and it turns out there is alot of traffic today.   

The Eclipse was starting to take out the sun.   Made it a little strange.  The sky was getting darker as the morning progressed. 

The climb up turned out to be easy.   Only 600 feet of vertical.   The descent down to the trail head took forever.   Going to be painful climbing back up this thing in a few days. 

On the way down I shot a lame picture of the eclipse. 

I hope somebody saw something interesting.   The clouds rolled in as the sun dimmed so there was little to see….just weird gloom. 

Alice is heading back home from Mammoth today and plans to meet me in Independence.   I spent most of the hike down trying to convince her to pick me up.   That turned out to be a failure.    I even picked some flowers to entice her…..

Once we reached the trailhead it only took 10 minutes to find a ride down.    The guy didn’t even want my flowers….so there. 

We checked into the hostel at the courthouse motel.   Great digs and good people.   Alice turned up a few hours later and brought us some food.   She says I look skinny.  🙂   I’m looking forward to getting this hike done and returning to my normal life.   Just a couple more weeks, Honey!!!!!!

Did 8 miles getting out today, but zero PCT miles.   I did, however, drink about 6 beers.   So that counts for something.   

 

Just a few drops last night, but lots of thunder.  Woke up to 35 degrees and slowly made my way out of the tent.   The mosquitos are still hanging on my bug net, but they’ve no energy.   It is my time to fight back!

To be honest, I’ve been worried about this pass for a long, long time.   I still have a bad memory of hiking with my daughter and her friends up to Glen pass (~12k) 10 years ago and getting a nasty case of altitude sickness around 11k.    At that time, it was nearing the end of the day, I was dizzy, barfing, and felt achy all over.   After a night’s sleep there, I woke up feeling even worse.   We had to cancel the rest of the hike and head back.    

In the back of my mind, I was thinking.  Will this happen again?  Am I drinking enough water?  Will my head explode when I reach the top?  Well today I find out. 

Soho was ahead of me most of the way, but we kept pretty close together.   I hike faster in the morning and he seems to be taking it easy.   

The approach climb is not too bad.   Gradual climb across a huge valley.   Here is a pic looking back. 

I took a small vid of the area here

 

I saw Soho passing a couple switch backs above me.   I yelled out his name.   The mountains need to know his name. 

Along the way I passed a memorial to some kid who died making the trail.   He apparently left his tools behind.  

Getting closer

This is looking back over the infamous snow chute.   I’m glad I didn’t cross this thing when the snow was covering it.  

And….made it!

There was not much room at the top, but we found a gal who agreed to snap our photo.  She managed not to fall off the mountain doing so. 

And here is my celebration pic.  

On the North side we had to deal with some snow fields.   3 of them were tricky with the first one being the hardest.   A lot of folks were coming up a direct route, but it seemed that going down that was risky.   We decided to take a side route.   I took the lead through the snow and found some rocks to hop down.   It was a tricky decent. 

After skirting the snow fields it was a long, long descent into the valley.   There are streams running everywhere, but the green doesn’t start again until 11k or so. 

All those little streams feed into Bubb’s creek.   The trail follows it for a bit, but fortunately we don’t have to cross this beast. 

Soon there is water + flat meadows which = mosquitos.   Sorry no more pics of the lower elevations.   I was running for my life. 

At the end of all this is a final 1k climb over 1.5 miles.  It begins with a note from Ranger Rick about the bear menace.   Why can’t I just exchange my 2.5 pound bear can for a 2.5 pound pistol?  That would permanently solve the bear problem.

Climbing up I had a couple moments of deja vu.   Turns out that this is the same trail that Stephanie and I ascended when I got altitude sickness.   

When I reached the top, I found the sign for the trail intersection to Kearsarge pass.  This is the route we will take tomorrow to go to Independence for resupply.   It also turns out that this is the spot where Stephanie, her friends, and I stopped long ago.  

 

I was barfing my guts out on this log. 

Stephanie and her friends were camped over here. 

Anyway, that was a little spooky.   Fortunately, I felt great this time.   Made camp a couple hundred feet from the evil barf log and had a good dinner.   Tomorrow we hike out to Independence.