-> Kennedy Meadows to Kearsarge Pass ->
5/27-6/2
After a round of goodbyes at Kennedy Meadows, we walked back to trail with packs full of big clunky bear cans, some new snow appropriate gear, and hopes that we could handle the mountains ahead.
We planned to spend the next 6.5 days on trail together before hiking out and hitching to Bishop. At the time, I was most excited about how remote the experience would be and that there wouldn’t be another city for a while. As much as I like dipping into town for some real food and air conditioning, I wanted to be challenged and have longer periods of time without those resources.
I had my permit checked by a PCTA employee who we saw again later that week hiking a section of the trail. This was my first time having to show my permit and it only added to the feeling that we were entering into a brand new experience.
Things began to shift as we left southern California behind. The trees got bigger and older all around us and we walked through big meadows and approached the snowy peaks to the north. There would be a few snow-free days before we increased elevation and transitioned entirely into the high sierras.
By the afternoon, we had reached a foot bridge that was home to dozens of swallows. They were constantly swooping in and out of their nests and would fly together like a school of fish.
The river was a few feet deep but not moving too quickly so I got in to enjoy the cold water before drying off on the bridge. We took a nice break at this spot and it started a pattern of afternoon swims and long breaks in the weeks to come.
We pressed on a bit further and got higher up into the trees before setting up camp.
Some of the mornings, Manon would play a tranquil song from the Hobbit soundtrack right as we were waking up and now I’ll associate that song with the feeling of my sleeping pad deflating under me and my body hitting the ground.
It was new having a trail family that I knew I would stay with for a designated amount of time and I really enjoyed sharing experiences with them. It can be tricky to be tied to a trail family if you have different hiking styles but we were all mostly synced up with when we liked to start the day and how far we felt like going.
If there were no challenges in the day (dangerous river crossings or mountain passes), we would end up separating and hiking alone for periods of time which I found really relaxing.
It was so cool to see how quickly we had entered a new world after leaving Kennedy Meadows. I found similar views and woods in San Jacinto and part of the LA mountains but the Sierra Nevada was already very different.
It is grand and sprawling and there is always more than one focal point. Each ridge I climbed gave sight to more peaks unfurling on the horizon.
Free Bird educated us a bit on types of Lichen and I we memorized the names of three varieties.
Crustose: The simple and flat kind that grows like a crust
Foliose: Still flat but with lobe shaped foliage (no picture)
Fruticose: The most dimensional varieties that can have branching and some fruiting features that look more fungal
Lichen is a symbiotic pairing of algae and fungus and is known as a colonizing species which means it can be the first organism in an ecosystem. One of the ways it does this is by producing acids that slowly erode rocks. The rocks break down into soils that can then be occupied by new species.
I spent hours admiring the trees in this section. The tall Junipers blew my mind with their twisting limbs and bark that peeled away. I am used to the California Juniper which is shrubby and grows in the desert (lots of them in Joshua Tree NP!). I guess these large
Ponderosas and jeffrey pines have the most interesting segments of bark that look like layered puzzle pieces.
At least once a day, a few of us would catch up at a meal break and talk about the insane trees we had seen that day. It was fun geeking out on them with Free Bird since she was the most knowledgeable about forests.
Food was stretched thin this week because I found it pretty hard to fit enough in my bear can for the 6.5 days. I cheated and didn’t put some other scented items (toothpaste, sunscreen, etc) in the can until I ate enough to make room for them.
I would often empty everything out of my bear can and try to figure out how I could scrounge an extra snack out of my supply.
Manon had the strategy of eating one color of her skittles each day which I thought was hilarious but also a decent rationing idea.
We made it to Chicken Spring Lake which was our first alpine lake and I think the first frozen lake I’ve ever seen.
I spent the afternoon after Chicken Spring Lake with Dream because he was having issues with FarOut (mapping app) and couldn’t set navigate on his own. We joked that we would get him a backpack with a leash on it so we could keep him close.
Dream lives in Florida and has hiked the Appalachian Trail and the Florida Trail so we talked a lot about how those experiences compared to the PCT. As much as people have defended their love for the AT, many of them have also reiterated that they are grateful they did it before the PCT because it was more punishing and had less rewarding views. For some reason, I have zero interest in hiking the AT.
Out of everybody in our group, Dream was an outlier in his hiking preferences. He would usually get up around 5am and wanted to have the majority of his miles done before lunch. The rest of us were prone to stretching out the day and smelling the roses along the way.
He would look at his progress on the same minute of each hour to see how many miles he completed and would check the amount of elevation we were going to gain or lose at the beginning of each day. I enjoyed my day more when I didn’t know how intense it was going to be and let each climb and descent be a surprise.
I would sometimes look at my map and label the mountains I was taking seeing, but there were truthfully too many to capture and remember.
The highest mountain in southern California is mount San Gorgonio, which stands at 11,500 feet. I love that mountain and hope to summit it again (you can sleep camp right on the summit!).
To contrast that, the Sierra Nevada has over a hundred peaks above 13,000 feet.
A hundred!
Dream and I knocked out 9 miles quickly and got to a ranger cabin that was established for measuring snow levels in the winter. There are no roads nearby so I think the rangers have to hike out or ride a horse to the cabin.
We waited for the rest of the group to catch up and were planning to sleep here.
Since we got there so early, we lounged around on the deck by the river and played music. Maybe Dream is on to something with his early start times – it was really nice being done for the day and having a few daylight hours left.
The only flaw with this stay was that it was off trail and we lost Manon for the night. Oops! She kept hiking thinking we were going to camp before the river. We messaged her with our Garmins to make sure she was safe and caught up to her the next morning.
I used the thread and needles I found in a hiker box and finally stitched up my trail runners that had been delaminating for weeks. They were near the end of their lives but I still wanted to get a couple hundred miles out of them.
I couldn’t resist the opportunity to sleep above the porch of the cabin and hoped that a ranger wouldn’t show up (they didn’t). I fell asleep to the sound of the river rushing just 15 feet away knowing I’d have to cross it in the morning.
After averaging 19 miles that week, we were in for an easy day with only 7 miles to get to Crabtree Meadow. We planned this easy day because we would be attempting to summit Mount Whitney the next morning!
Mount Whitney is not on the PCT but the trail gets close enough that it would have felt wrong not to do it while we were there. It only adds 16 total miles from Crabtree Meadow.
I have summited Whitney one time before so I was grateful that I didn’t feel nervous. Some have no idea how their bodies will handle altitude and we hadn’t done anything like it on trail yet.
Somebody put this sign together with pine cones that pointed ahead on trail. I have no idea why its there because there was no trail magic ahead:(
Spending the better part of the day relaxing at the meadow was incredible. I dipped in Whitney Creek and laid out on the grass for hours. I’ve never enjoyed napping in the sun like I have on trail.
The plan was to hike Mount Whitney and get to the summit as the sun rose the next morning.
To make up for the lost sleep, we would nap in the afternoon. We set up our tents in the shade of the trees so we could leave some gear there and crash into our beds when we got back.
I prepared my breakfast for the morning and topped off the charge on my headlamp before bed.
Setting an alarm for 11:45pm felt illegal.
I queued up all of my warm clothes next to me so I could put them on in the middle of the night and then I fell asleep by 6pm.
I woke up to my alarm and and accepted my fate.
A couple other groups were making their way through the meadow and I watched from my tent as their succession of red headlamps made way across the river to start their trek.
Dream had a bad night sleep (pestered by a rat the whole night), so he decided to stay back. The rest of us got going at 12:30am.
Crossing Whitney Creek was an effective way to wake up in the morning and shook off any sleepy warmth I had left in me. It was game time.
I have always found night hiking to be shockingly less threatening than I expect it to be.
The hike up to Whitney was one of the most peaceful environments I’ve ever been in. There was no wind and only the sound of running water and our feet crunching on the snow.
We stopped in amazement at the Milky Way reflecting off of Timberline Lake in the pitch black. Across the lake, the rocky face had veins of snow that made it look like a tidal wave looming over us.
We could see strings of headlamps ahead of us on the trail as a group wound up the switchbacks to the summit. There’s something very satisfying about the shared experience of hiking at night.
I ate my breakfast after completing the switchbacks and we only had a couple miles left!
We made it to the summit in the knick of time and got to watch the sun rising! It couldn’t have been timed better because we heard some groups got up there too early and were freezing! My water started to freeze and got slushy, but we had our sleeping bags with us in case we wanted to sit around.
It was a really fun moment and a huge relief for everybody who was able to make it to the top. It was awesome knowing we had accomplished the highest climb we would encounter on trail!
When I summited Mount Whitney in 2019, we got hit with a summer storm right away and had to rush down off the mountain. This time, I got to sit and take it in!
The early sky was bright orange to the east and full of cool purples to the west.
On the descent, we could see everything in daylight for the first time. It was steep and rocky but not treacherous.
As the sun rose higher, I could finally shed some of the 4 top layers I had on.
Vibes and I had premeditated our post-Whitney swim in Timberline lake as a celebration and to soothe the muscles. I cannonballed in and sunk into the silt on the bottom of the lake. What an odd sensation.
Back at Crabtree Meadow, I got in my tent and slept like a stone for 2.5 hours. I woke with bloodshot eyes at 4pm and thought it was the next day. It was still May 31st and we were not done hiking for the day.
In fact, we had to climb over Forester Pass the next morning and would be waking up before 3am. Forester Pass is the highest point on the official PCT.
It was a doozy to follow up Whitney with Forester but our food limitations didn’t allow for us to linger.
I was not stoked about having to knock out more miles the same day as Mount Whitney but it ended up being a really lovely stretch and I got a second wind. It’s hard to complain in a beautiful environment.
I woke at 3:30am to a frozen sleeping bag but I’ve become much less bothered by condensation. I was comfortable and warm inside and would just need to remember to dry it out later in the day.
Packing up under the stars:)
Early morning river crossings were becoming common. Sometimes, I would cross in my underwear if I didn’t want to deal with wet clothes.
The reason we got up so early was so the snow would be nice and hard while we went up Forester Pass. With microspikes, it was unlikely to slip around and much easier to do before the snow got slushier.
The approach to Forester was gorgeous and a little bit threatening. When we saw the pass, we were really unsure of how we were going to get over the top. It looked quite steep and we couldn’t see where the path was.
It ended up not being complicated!
This was at the top of Forester Pass and I was grateful that this part of trail was reinforced.
On the backside of Forester, we glissaded down a big slope of snow and took our time getting down below the snow level.
Finishing this pass was just as big of a relief as Mount Whitney and the view looking down into the valley took us all off guard. I had no idea what I was in for (in the best way).
My favorite part of the day is usually when we hike far enough down to get past the snow. That was when we could dry out all of the gear that got wet the night before and I took a killer rock nap for a couple hours.
The high elevation on Whitney and Forester made coming down to 9,000′ feel normal.
At this point, we had accomplished the hardest sections for the week and would be hiking out to a trailhead in the morning and hitchhiking to town. It would be only 7 miles the next day to get to a trailhead!
We set up our camp and enjoyed the beautiful views of the valley as the sun set. It felt good being a day away from a real meal and our fixation for the week had been pepperoni pizza.
As we made our separate dinners, Vibes was looking for shapes in the snow patches on the mountains the same way you would with clouds. He later pointed out what he said was “the queen smoking a cigarette” but it was more like a ball with four protruding points. We joked about it countless times over the next week.
One really unexpected event that night was meeting Nicholas, a homeless man.
He hobbled down towards us while we were eating dinner and my initial response was regretfully to ignore him approaching us because I was so taken off guard. It was really odd to see somebody in his state so far out in the woods and I felt vulnerable since my cowboy bed was set up away from everybody else. He was wearing heavy waxed jackets, military boots with staples that he had pounded in for traction, a metal flask, and a small hatchet swinging from his side. Everything he had was heavy and you could see it in his pained steps.
He asked us for some information as he wanted to get to a place where he could store his food in a bear box. After we gave him some directions, I watched as he started to walk really slowly and I realized he wouldn’t make it where he needed to go before dark. I didn’t feel good about letting him go alone.
I walked down to catch up to him and got to know him for a good 20 minutes because I wanted to vet him and see if he was harmless.
I was humbled and realized he was more mentally stable than he initially looked. He had lost his job a few days before and his car broke down too so he pulled some gear together and was trying to get to Hume Lake to see if he could be rehired for seasonal work. It was an irregular choice and I know he could have found another way to get there, but he felt like it was the way he needed to take. It would take him a few days to cut east through the mountains (if the information he had was correct). He was only stocked with 12 small beef jerky bags that he intended to ration so I made him promise me he would turn around if he didn’t find any roads within 5 days. I was fascinated by all of his custom gear and he loved to talk about how he put it together, including the cotton blanket he sewed into his military bivy and his homemade water filter.
I was still a little nervous but felt like I needed to take the risk, so I offered to put his food in my bear can so he wouldn’t have to go further that night. I lent him my foam mat for the night so he could sleep a little bit better in his bivy and we cowboy camped next to eachother.
I found out he is a Christian and we talked about our faith as much as anything else while he spent a good ten minutes caring for his blistered feet. He layered his feet and slept with his boots on to stay warm.
I gave him the few snacks I could in the morning before leaving. He had no phone or way to keep in contact but I really hope he got where he needed to go.
Hiking the PCT has been very sociably comfortable despite the physical discomforts of being outdoors. Everybody has saved up money so we rarely deny ourselves the gear or food purchases we want. It’s a world of suspended responsibilities and meeting Nicholas was a timely intrusion to that world. I’m so grateful I met him at that time and got confronted with how lucky I am to be wandering the woods for fun. I get to take time to satisfy my love for the outdoors and to fulfill a dream but very few people can step out of life and stop working for prolonged periods of time.
After saying bye to Nicholas, we had our 7 mile trek to get off trail. These were not PCT miles and we would have to do them a second time to get back to the actual trail.
Kearsarge Pass was easy, especially compared to Forester Pass, and we were stoked to get down to Bishop!
After 6 days, I could see a road! We started to pass lots of clean day hikers and young kids on trail which meant we were getting close.
A pretty cool guy named Punisher was hanging out at the parking lot with sodas in his car. He is an ultra marathon runner, which I could never ever do, and he might hop on the PCT in late June.
Manon and Free Bird tried approaching some cars to see if we could tag along and get a ride off the mountain. It took a good 45 minutes until we got a ride, and it was a guy that originally said he could not take us. He turned around and came back to get us after his daughter told him we were PCT hikers and had us all get in the truck bed! His name was Tori Walker he is close friends with the founder of Gossamer Gear and recommended we reach out to him when we get up to Bend. The trail community is a truly tiny world.
It was incredibly fun taking the long windy road down to Indepence in the back of the truck. Vibes played music on his speaker and we were all soaking up the satisfaction of accomplishing our first week in the Sierra. We felt the air getting hotter as we descended from the mountains and we were in for some toasty days in Bishop.
Punisher (the guy who gave us soda), saw us outside a gas station and let us pile into his car so we could get to Bishop. It was finally pizza time.
Pizza finally!
We stayed in The Hostel California which was a little eclectic hippie stronghold. There were some great outdoor lounge spaces, a kitchen stocked with lots of free leftovers, and an easy walk to numerous restaurants and coffee shops.
We got Mexican food a couple times, went bowling (only $7 each game!), and I made a habit of going to a coffee shop in the morning to listen to music and to search for a place to book for my brother’s upcoming bachelor party.
The next week on trail would have five more passes and a reroute around San Joaquin river, so we needed to plan ahead more than usual before buying food. Free Bird was so helpful and laid out a great plan.
I got lucky and was able to see family passing through town while I was in Bishop! Julie and John spoiled me with a bunch of pastries from Schat’s to bring back to my friends and we feasted that night. Thank you!!
As my last town chore, I bought an unrealistic amount of food because I didn’t want to be as hungry as I was the week before. I was able to get most of it in my bear can with some creative tactics (standing on my food), but a few things did not make the cut. I would need to eat them before night 1 or leave them behind.
After a great stay in Bishop, we were heading back up to Kearsarge Pass to rejoin the trail and tackle another week of rocky mountain passes, snow fields, and cold rivers.
I think we all felt a bit more confident after the past week on trail and were ready for some more rugged paradise.
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