Mt Whitney to Kearsarge Pass trailhead

PCT MILES COMPLETE: 510.8

PCT mile 770.3 to PCT mile 788.5
Section mileage: 25.8
Days: 6/20 - 6/21

After Whitney, we didn't think anything could possibly top it, but our next day, I was blown away by the transition into Kings Canyon National Park. The hike through the Sierras is defined by mountain "passes". These are low points where you cross over a mountain ridge. We had passes in the desert (ie Walker Pass), but they involved a steep descent to a road, and a steep ascent up a mountain. Passes in the Sierras are the opposite: a steep climb up a ridge followed by a steep, snow-covered climb down. Every day, we crossed one pass, and the first was Forester Pass. The highest point on the PCT at over 13,000 feet above sea level.

We were over a mile into the climb when I realized that Craig had left a bag with my journal in it down by our last stream crossing. I guarded the packs from marmots while he hiked back. For a few minutes I was annoyed. And then it dawned on me where I was: a meadow in the Sierras, with a blissful half an hour of stillness to myself. The sun was warm with a soft breeze. There were blue skies and no mosquitoes. I took out my map and gave each of the surrounding peaks their proper names. When Craig caught up, we continued on our climb.

From Mt Whitney to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite (almost 200 miles), the PCT is identical to the John Muir Trail (JMT), and most JMT hikers are southbound. This means that we were suddenly running into dozens of hikers every day.

South side of Forester Pass

Looking south from Forester Pass

The climb up Forester Pass was long and gradual. In a field, we ran into a fearless doe feasting on yellow flowers. The grass gave way to granite boulder fields, and the streams to alpine lakes. These lakes are breathtakingly beautiful; they are these surreal, placid pools of turquoise blue too cold to swim in. Up close, they are full of life. In one, I filtered out hundreds of bright red copepods. As we approached the final ascent of Forester Pass, it seemed impossible that we would be able to climb the sheer rock face. But hidden switchbacks had been blasted into the granite and so up we went, into the top of the world. I can't overstate how much I love climbing passes. Because at the top, you get a view of a completely new world to the north of the ridge. And Forester Pass had the best view yet.

North side of Forester Pass

We thought our ascent was difficult, but it was nothing compared to what the JMT hikers face on the north slope. We started by crossing a snow field. It was afternoon by now, so the snow was soft, which can be not only laborious to cross but also dangerous. Each step, I would slam my heal into the bank to anchor myself before putting my weight on that foot. Even still, occasionally my foot would go plummeting into the slush and I'd be thigh-high in snow. This lovely activity is called postholing. To make matters worse, we have no trekking poles to stabilize ourselves, and I hike in sandals. Luckily, the snow fields didn't cover more than a couple hundred feet since it was a low snow year and we were in the back of the thruhiker "herd".

We had planned to descend that night as far as possible, in order to set ourselves up for a short day into town. We were resupplying our food at Kearsarge Pass the following day. Thruhikers have a variety of strategies for resupply in the Sierras and none of them are easy. There is only one road that crosses the Sierras east-west, and that wasn't until Yosemite. That means that we had to each hike bonus miles over the eastern slope of the range and hitchhike into a town, or mail a bucket of food to a horse pack station and pay them $70 to carry it into their backcountry ranch. We decided on the former. If you're really intrepid, like our friends Spice rack, Hippo, and Thirsty, you can (theoretically) carry all of the food you'll need in the Sierras (about 12 days' worth) from Kennedy Meadows. Either way, we were all hungry by this point.

This means, when several JMT hikers told us that a few trail angels were ahead "about four miles" cooking dinner for hikers, we launched into our rare 4 mph pace, blasting down the canyon. It was more like 6 miles, and we started thinking that the hikers were messing with us. "What kind of people would make that up?" We grumbled to each other. I had three-quarters of a packet of ramen and a granola bar left. That would have to do, because it was getting dark and we were tired. And just when we'd given up hope, we saw a Canadian flag strewn across the path. A man dressed in full Monty costume approached to welcome us across the "border" with snack bags.

Us and Sherpa at the "Canadian border"

Now, what you have to understand is that we were 7.5 miles from the nearest road, across a pass and a 3000 vertical climb. The aptly named Sherpa and his friends had each hiked in 60 lb packs to generously feed hikers for several days, and we were lucky enough to be those hikers. Do you want a quesadilla? They asked. Yes! Do you want some spaghetti? S'mores? Cinnamon buns with messy globs of Nutella smeared on top? Yes! Yes! Yes! It was heaven, sitting around our first campfire of the trail socializing with the trail angels and other hikers.

View from Bullfrog Lake Trail

Spice rack, a lady hiker from Toronto, and Hippo and Thirsty, an extremely friendly young couple from California, and V, a guy from the Czech Republic, also caught up at the campfire. "These JMT hikers told us it was only four miles!" they complained good-naturedly. Hippo and Thirsty pulled out their hand-carved wooden flutes to serenade the rest of us as we drifted off to sleep full of cheese and pasta.

Rainbow over Kearsarge Pass

The next morning, we took the side trail over Kearsarge Pass. At the parking lot, there were MORE trail angels. Former thruhikers Uberbitch and Bristlecone ("cause he's the oldest living thing on the trail!" Uberbitch explained.) had set up at the campground for a couple weeks, cooking for hikers and sending them on their way ("I thought you were hiking to Canada!" they would scold if you stayed for too long). Craig managed to talk a dayhiker into driving us and Tailor the hour to Bishop, a town an hour away with a real grocery store and new hostel with $15 dorms.