August 8, 2016

The morning chill that comes with camping next to a body of water, at altitude, in the wind-channel of a valley, was in full effect. I was glad to be starting the day with the climb up and over Pinchot Pass. The sun was just beginning to peak over the cliffs, illuminating the eastern faces and casting long shadows down the other side. I stopped at the top for a moment to enjoy the light.

Similar to the previous day, I spent the first half of the day descending to a river before beginning the climb up to Glen Pass. Along the way I passed the Slip n' Slide - an incredibly smooth rock stream bed reminiscent of a water park ride. While the temptation to stop and try it out was strong, common sense prevailed. It was too steep, far too long a run, and I was too alone to consider it. Besides, it wasn't worth ending my hike in injury this close to the end!

I stopped for lunch at the river at the bottom. This sounds obvious, but the reality that I was going to have to ration become more apparent the emptier my bear canister got. Looking at a full resupply while safely in town (or at MTR) and knowing the math doesn't check out is very different from looking at what you have left when you're in the backcountry, equidistant from your each of your two resupply options.

Slip 'n Slide

Suspension bridge

The climb to Glen Pass began with crossing a very wobbly suspension bridge. I had Rae Lakes to look forward to before getting to Glenn Pass, but it was still a long haul up to there. The lakes themselves were absolutely stunning, however, and definitely earned a spot on my list of sections to come back to at some point. As a bonus, this section was far enough south that getting a permit for it would probably be pretty easy.

The last mile and a half up to the pass was barren, rocky, and very steep. The pass itself was a windy knife edge. I could not imagine taking stock up and over this, but there are a lot of things I couldn't imagine doing that were necessities when the original stock trails that ended up forming the PCT were made. I didn't linger long.

The descent began passing by a Clorox-blue lake. I was a little low on water but decided it was worth the wait to the bottom given that I had no idea what was responsible for the color (probably harmless, I know, but...). Shortly after that the trail turned steep. My knees began bothering me and I was grateful when I finally reached the creek and campground at the bottom. I was there earlier than anticipated and after a short break decided to press on towards Forrester Pass.

Clorox Blue

The evening is an amazing time. You can hike alone all day thinking that the trail is empty. As soon as 4:00pm hits, however, people begin to set up camp and you begin passing all the hikers you were just ahead of or behind. I came around one switch back and saw a blue tent that looked familiar. Newton and Yak! I stopped to say hello and decided to camp with them. They were on their way to bed but stayed up a little bit longer to catch up. Squeegee was unfortunately off trail due to altitude sickness, but their hike had been going quite well aside from that. With the tallest pass of the JMT waiting for us, we turned in.