Which Way Is North?

PCT Mile 830.9 to PCT Mile 844.4 Day Total: 13.5 Miles Today we hiked over Muir Pass, which had even more snow than any of the previous passes. Miles and miles of snow. We walked on dry ground for just a couple miles this morning, and then the three miles up to the pass were about 98 percent snow covered. The snow was slushy by the time we were walking on it, so we had wet shoes right away. At the top of Muir Pass we found Papa Bear and Trailblazer sitting behind the stone shelter. We sat and ate a long lunch with them, looking out over the miles of snow ahead of us. The way down was even more of a slog. The snow was slushy and the grade was really gentle, so progress was slow. There weren't any sections steep enough to be able to glissade, so we just slogged. We walked over snow for more than four miles on the way down, interrupted only briefly by rock islands. We came across a sign for the trail that pointed across a 30-yard wide, slow moving creek. That summed up t...

PCT Mile 815.6 to PCT Mile 830.9 Day Total: 15.3 Miles Today was hard. I fell off a log crossing a creek, and Stephen twisted his ankle. Our shoes were wet more than they weren't and progress over snow fields was exhausting and slow. We were hungry and grumpy and I cried. All that said, I look around, and I can't feel sorry for myself for long. The views today were nothing short of stunning. The sharp granite peaks covered with snow and massive, perfect glacial valleys I saw today are what I'll think of forever when I think of the PCT through the Sierras. Stephen built a little campfire tonight after we'd set up our tent in a densely forested area near a raging creek. We sat around with our little trail family of Papa Bear, Caboose, and Trailblazer, eating instant mashed potatoes and talking about how hard today was. Papa Bear, who also fell in a creek today, said it best: "Today, nature won."

PCT Mile 802.6 to PCT Mile 815.6 Day Total: 13.0 Miles We did not get an early start this morning. Our campsite was the last place in the entire visible area to feel the sun and between being tired from yesterday and cold in the morning, it was slow going once we got started. From camp, it was a gradual climb for a few miles on trail, then a couple more over snow before we reached the steep part of the pass. There were some good footprints in the snow, but other places it was hard to follow. The biggest thing I've learned about navigating these passes is that if you can't see the trail or footprints, take the easiest route up. This usually includes some scrambling on rocks. For a couple miles on either side of the pass, we saw only occasional short glimpses of the trail. We had high hopes of making it over Pinchot Pass and over the next pass, Mather, today. The tops of the passes are 10 miles apart, so this would be the biggest day we'd done in a while. After Pi...

PCT Mile 789.1 to PCT mile 802.6 Day Total: 13.4 Miles The Sierra is tough. In the desert, we could walk for eight hours and consistently make it 22-to-24 miles. In the Sierra, we walk all day long and cover 13 miles. And I feel way more exhausted. This morning, we had about two miles from our campsite to the top of Glen Pass. Well, those two miles took us about two hours. The slowness is a combination of factors: the snow, the effort to keep our shoes dry when there's a stream running down the trail, route finding, and impressively steep climbs. The way down the pass still had a lot of snow as well. We spent a lot of time kicking our heels in every step and moving down the well-tracked path of footprints. There was also a couple places where we got to slide on or bums, also knows as glissading. Glissading rocks because it's like sledding, but also because it is way faster than walking down switchbacks. Yes, we do hike in shorts. It's like a very cold, sl...

Bishop, Calif. Kearsarge Pass trail to PCT Mile 789.1 Day Total: 7.5 Miles (none on the PCT) We walked to the grocery store this morning and bought a lot of food, eight days worth. That's the most we've carried at once and it wasn't light. I got a lot hungrier during the last section, maybe because it's finally not super hot, so we ended up buying a little extra. I was kind of dreading going back to the trail today, knowing that we had a huge climb over Keararge Pass just got get back to the PCT. That's the same trail that we took into town two days ago and it felt long on the way down. We ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant with Caboose and Papa Bear and planned to head back to the trail together in the afternoon. We ended up getting a ride back to the trail (over an hour!) from a guy who hiked the PCT in 2015, who coincidentally lives in Davidson, N.C., where Stephen went to college. His trail name is Traveler. He is on a cross-country road trip and doing s...