Pinchot Pass: It can bring a grown man to his knees....

June 23: I ate Lucky Charms for breakfast, and Shang-hi harassed me about that. "Yeah, the options in Independence were severely limited," I told him. I had to admit, though, it did taste good. =) I had doubts it would fill me up, though.

Hurricane and Shang-hi woke early and left camp before me. As I was finishing up and about ready to leave, two young girls walked past camp. They reminded me vaguely of the two girls I saw walking up Kearsarge Pass when I was hiking down naked, but that couldn't possibly be right. That was two days ago. It seemed impossible that I caught up to them so quickly.

"So who are you?" I asked.

And indeed, it was Fidget and Anne, the first two people who had caught me hiking naked. It seemed clear that they didn't recognize me with my clothes on, and I nervously introduced myself again. "I'm Green Tortuga."

Anne exclaimed, "Oh! We saw your wee-wee!"

Wee-wee? Really? That's not a word that inspires confidence.

I learned that Anne was just visiting Fidget for a short section of the trail, and that they decided to take a zero day directly on the trail which is how I was able to catch up to them so quickly out of town. We talked about Hike Naked Day, and Fidget and Anne said that they really wanted to try it as well, and after meeting me, they spent all day talking each other out of it. Fidget called my naked hiking "honorable"--admittedly not the first word that comes to mind when I see a naked hiker, but I wasn't going to complain. Yes, what I did was honorable!

I pulled ahead of the two girls, eventually catching up to Shang-hi and Hurricane a few miles before Pinchot Pass, a 12,150-foot pass. It was a pass I had heard nothing about, which made me optimistic that it wouldn't be much of a problem. Even my topo maps suggested it would be relatively easy, slowly climbing in altitude without any steep cliffs to slide down.

But I was wrong. We were all wrong. It was the worst pass to date. It wasn't a dangerous pass--the trail didn't go along the steep, scary-looking slopes. The problem with this pass was postholing. The snow was thick and soft, and with each step, I'd sink in up to my waist and have to dig myself out. Each exhausting step increased my frustration. I wanted to yell. I wanted to cry. I fell to my knees and started crawling at one point. The increased surface area of my body while crawling helped reduce the postholing problems (the keyword being reduced the problems--not eliminate them).

I tried to follow the official PCT trail to the top of Pinchot Pass while Hurricane and Shang-hi veered off and went up the right side of the valley where they felt the snow wasn't as deep. They were probably right in hindsight, but the official PCT looked like it might hit a lot of the rocky outcrops on the left side of the valley so I stuck with that.

But the postholing was a nightmare, literally bringing me to my knees. For about ten minutes, I crawled across the snow, repeating to myself, "Please don't break through... please don't break through the snow....." over and over again. Sometimes one of my hands did break through, and my face would crash into the snow, my hands and arms buried in snow. I'm not proud to admit it, but I did a lot of cussing.

At one snow-free rock outcropping I reached, I finally stood up and saw the trail. I could actually see the trail, after losing it over an hour before, and I shouted down to Shangi-hi and Hurricane, "I found the trail!" The two were small specks at the bottom of the valley, and I heard them call back, but I couldn't make out their words. Then I heard another voice--a girl's voice--also call out from the bottom.

There was a third hiker down there, but I couldn't identify who it was. The only two girls I knew about on the trail was Fidget and Anne, but they were ahead of me, and there was only one girl below. I wondered who it was, and shouted out, "Who is that?" But I couldn't hear an answer.

I postholed again, using my trekking pole to help push myself out, when SNAP! My trekking pole broke in two. I cursed it and proceeded to dig myself out with the half pole now in my hands.

Near the top of the pass, I finally connected with Shangi-hi and Hurricane again, and the mysterious girl who followed their route was Fidget. I'm not sure how I got ahead of Fidget, and I didn't know what happened to Anne. Shangi-hi said it looked like I had a lot of trouble with postholing on my route, which I confirmed, and told about my having to crawl across the snow at one point.

"Yeah! I saw that!" He wasn't sure if I had just postholed and was trying to dig myself out or if I was actually crawling across the snow.

"Oh, I was crawling. Definitely crawling."

To Fidget, I asked, "What happened to Anne?"

After climbing over Glen Pass, Anne decided that this trail was too scary, too intense, and too insane to continue. She quit. Probably thinking something like, "You thru-hikers are f#*@ing INSANE!" I didn't realize that there was even an option to quit somewhere along this part of the trail, but I guess there was. So Fidget was now hiking alone, or at least following us up Pinchot Pass.

From the top of the pass, Fidget and I hiked on together. While I did want a hiking partner over these high passes, I kind of didn't want to hike with Hurricane. Not that I didn't like Hurricane, but from past experience over Fuller Ridge, I knew he got lost often and easily, and he was also having knee troubles, and Shang-hi had told me that Hurricane was saying he wasn't sure if he would even be able to finish the trail. I didn't want to attach my ship to a guy who might leave the trail at any time and who would be next to worthless trying to navigate.

So I attached my ship to Fidget. It wasn't really a formal agreement or anything, but rather the two of us just took off from the top of Pinchot Pass at around the same time, and both of us continued to posthole for miles more on the other side of the pass slowing us down to similar paces. We'd call out to each other anytime either of us spotted the trail peeking out from the snow.

The trail passed by Marjorie Lake, so naturally I took lots of photos of Marjorie's Lake. =)

Progress through the snow continued to be slow and exhausting. Eventually, we passed a park ranger--the second one I'd seen in as many days--who encouraged us that the snow would start going away after another mile or two. He also pointed out Mather Pass, the next 12,000+ foot pass that we would have to cross the next day. The actual pass we typically don't see until the very last minute due to the bends and curves of the canyons, but Mather Pass was visible from a long way off. And it didn't look too bad at all. The ranger said the snow level looked like it only covered the top 1000 feet of the pass, and that it was a lot easier than the pass we just crossed over. This lifted our spirits immensely!

We eventually got out of the bulk of the snow. The snow never really left completely--patches of it still lingered on the trail--but the postholing finally came to an end and more of the trail was exposed than covered and we went down the mountain.

We crossed a couple of knee-deep, fast-moving streams, and Fidget offered me one of her trekking poles to help me keep my balance while crossing, which was very helpful.

Then we reached the South Fork of the Kings River--a raging wall of water. Crossing it looked positively suicidal. It was the first of the truly scary river crossings. The ranger had said there was a river crossing ahead, but that it could be crossed on a log upstream from the trail. We didn't fully appreciate the danger this river crossing involved when he mentioned it, however. We hadn't seen anything like this on the trail before.

We hiked upstream, looking for the log that could get us across safely. We finally found it, but the river had risen so high, it was now streaming over the log. And even then, the log only crossed the second half of the river. It was sketchy, no matter how we looked at it. Fidget seemed fearless, though, and all but jumped into the water to get across while I was still 'waterproofing' my gear.

Knowing that there was a very good chance my gear would get wet, I put my camera in a Ziplock bag, inside a second waterproof bag, deep in my pack. I protected my maps, wallet, and electronic devices similarly. Fidget had nearly made it to the other side before I was even ready to start the crossing.

I stepped tentatively into the water--ice cold water, freshly melted snow--and the water became waist deep within seconds. A log in water, just out of reach, tantalized me, and I tried to reach for it. I reached, I grabbed, and the small log shifted, throwing me off balance. I was about to be swept away. I was sure I was a split second from being swept away, but somehow I grabbed onto the root of a nearby tree and steadied myself, pulling myself out of the water and standing on dry ground in the middle of the river, heart thumping so loudly it drowned out the sound of the rushing water.

I looked up at Fidget, watching me from the far side of the river, and gave her a thumbs up. I was okay. For now, at least. There was still the other half of the river to contend with. She urged me to cross on the submerged log. I worried about crossing on a submerged log. It was wet, with fast moving water flowing over it, and I worried my feet would slip if I tried to cross on it. But Fidget crossed okay, and she shouted to me that it wasn't as bad as it looked, so I went for it--another hair-raising, adrenaline-packed crossing.

I crossed successfully, however, and felt like throwing up upon reaching the other side. A river crossing like that will sap any energy left in a guy, let me tell you.

We continued hiking, and I told her, "The trail is bad and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in!"

She thought a moment, and asked, "Is that from The Cremation of Sam McGee?"

Well, yes, it was. I was impressed that she could pick out such an obscure line from a poem that most people aren't familiar with. Seems that her dad used to read her that poem all the time as a child, though, and she still recognized it.

Fidget and I continued hiking, pushing as close to the snow level as possible. After the postholing misery of today, we both wanted to get up and over Mather Pass as early in the morning as possible when the snow was still frozen and postholing not likely. So we were both incredibly exhausted, but we pushed on a few more miles, getting as close to Mather Pass as possible.

We finally set up camp, on dry ground, surrounded by snow. Fidget commented that I have an usual way of carrying a trekking pole, describing it was "Willie-Wonka-ish." I hadn't ever considered how I held a trekking pole before, but I instantly knew what she meant. I'd hold it with an 'overhand' grip, let it swing freely, and it's not the kind of grip I've ever seen other hikers use. They hold trekking poles in the 'standard' mode, gripping the handles as they were designed to be gripped.

Setting up camp, she also commented that she considered this part a 'feminine' activity. Part of the 'nesting' syndrome. Making a home, even if it was only to be used for a single night. I always visualized it as a manly activity, taming the wilderness. Survival. Tough as nails.

In camp, I always changed into dry camp clothes, and I joked that I guess it didn't matter if I changed clothes in front of Fidget since she'd already seen me naked before. Save me the effort of having to find some place to be modest in my changing, at least, which is kind of a hassle anyhow. There weren't a lot of trees in the area where we camped.

I recited the Robert Service poems for Fidget, then we went to sleep and let our bodies heal from their ordeal. And prepare for the next 12,000+ foot pass we'd be hitting the next morning.....

---

During the month of August, I'll be participating with Amanda in the Washington Trail Association's Hike-a-Thon. If you haven't already, please consider sponsoring us. (Especially me!) The folks do great work helping to fix up and maintain trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail and help make thru-hikes such as mine possible. If you enjoy reading this blog, consider giving something back to the trails that make it possible. Thanks!

Lemmings! We're Lemmings!

June 22: I'd been hearing rumors about hiker injuries and mishaps along the trail, and it's sometimes hard to separate fact from fiction. Now that I was in town and reading hiker blogs, I was starting to get more details about some of these events. For instance, Half Ounce was rescued by helicopter after suffering from high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) after climbing Mount Whitney. Another member of Team Zero, Ten Spot, then lost his pack while crossing the Tyndall river, finding himself in the Sierra wilderness with nothing but the clothes on his back. (That's the river I crossed without my pants on.) Other hiker I heard had chipped a tooth goofing around in the hot springs hundreds of miles back on the trail. Then there's the story Charmin told of another thru-hiker being bitten by a rattlesnake. Other hikers had just plain thrown in the towel and quit.

And I started thinking, "We're all lemmings." There we are, following this trail mindless of where it takes us. That's our job. It leads us into all sorts of hardships, and the trail is taking us out one at a time. Despite all these stories of other hiker injuries,  however, we carry on. Like the mindless lemming. In my younger years, I used to enjoy playing Lemmings, the video game. In my head, I imagined an endless line of thru-hikers, and clicking around trying to save as many of them as I could from walking into disaster.

We're all lemmings, in the grand game called Thru-Hiking the PCT.

I was pondering these thoughts as I walked into the dinning room at the hotel for breakfast. It was a bed and breakfast, and I had already used the bed. Now it was time to get the breakfast. I started some bread in the toaster and ordered waffles, scrambled eggs, and bacon.

The one other couple in the hotel walked in as I was waiting, and they started asking me about my hike. The couple was older, from Atascadero, just a few miles from my home town of San Luis Obispo. We ate breakfast together, and after asking about my stove, I went to my room and retrieved it to show them. They asked how I was going to get to the trailhead, and I said I'd try to hitch a ride. "Unless you want to drive me up there?" I asked, hopeful.

The woman said sure, seemed even a little excited at the prospect, but her husband clearly didn't like the idea. It was out of their way, and they didn't have room to take a passenger. I refrained from suggesting that one of them could stay at the hotel while the other dropped me off. After all, if they did drive me up to the trailhead, they'd have to come back down anyhow. No reason that both of them had to drive up, and clearly their vehicle had room for at least one passenger.

Mostly, I think the husband just didn't want to be bothered driving out of his way, which I could understand, but he stuck with the "there's no room to take another passenger" excuse. Oh, well. I didn't really expect to yogi a ride to the trailhead, but it didn't hurt to try!

I walked to Subway and bought a sandwich for the trail, and on the way back I bumped into Peanut Eater. He hiked the trail the previous year and was now spending a couple of weeks camped at the trailhead for Kearsarge Pass shuttling hikers all over the place. He was at the post office when he spotted me, and I asked about a ride to the trailhead. He had to drive down to Lone Pine to drop off some hikers, but that he was going to stop at the Courthouse Motel to pick up Trouble, Dude, Granite, and Tarrapin at 11:00, and that he'd pick me up there and then as well. Excellent!

But I decided to try hitching to the trailhead in the meantime. I was ready to go, and didn't really feel like waiting around for an hour for a ride. I walked out to the road to the trailhead and spent a half hour trying to hitch. During that time, only two cars passed by, and neither of them picked me up. Given the severe lack of traffic, I finally gave up and walked to the Courthouse Motel to wait.

Peanut Eater arrived and we all piled into the vehicle, finally arriving at the trailhead at 12:15. It was much later than I had wanted to arrive, but at least I was finally back in action. The other hikers hung around Peanut Eater's campsite, but I wanted to get a move on and left the behind.

The nine mile hike back to the PCT over Kearsarge Pass was largely uneventful. I caught up to a park ranger--the first I had seen on the trail--who didn't even ask to see my permit or bear canister. I was a little disappointed not to get 'carded.' I hadn't been carded on the trail yet, and I still wouldn't.

Since I had hiked out two days before, a considerable amount of snow had clearly melted. This was the first time I had to backtrack on trail I had already hiked before, and there were two places that I clearly remembered snow being a significant factor in a route I chose, and in both places, the snow had already melted. There was still a lot of snow on the ground, but I was impressed with how much had melted away in less then 48 hours.

I ate half my Subway sandwich sitting at the top of Kearsarge Pass, admiring an amazing view, and the other half at the trail junction upon reaching the PCT. I passed a family from Florida who were out backpacking for a week, and they seemed a little disoriented at all the snow and high altitudes. No kidding!

I lost the trail shortly after getting back on the PCT in the snow, and lost it for several miles. The trail might be lost, but I wasn't, and used my maps and compass to navigate over Glen Pass--a 12,000 foot pass. I was confident at first--I already passed the 13,000-foot Forester Pass without too much trouble! But I took one look at Glen Pass and quaked in my shoes. The pass looked impossibly steep, covered with a slick layer of snow, that--if one were to slip and slide down--would end with my body falling into a partially frozen alpine lake. I suddenly found myself wishing I had a hiking partner. Or at least wasn't out here completely alone.

I approached the pass, prepared to turn back if I felt it got too hairy. The snow was slushy which helped calm my fears. Slushy snow gave my shoes a lot more grip and the confidence that I could arrest a slide pretty easily. The pass looked scary, but as with Forester Pass, it's bark was worse than its bite.

Going down the other side went quickly. The day was getting late, and now I was rushing ahead to find a good place to camp. By Arrowhead lake, I saw a couple of tents set up, and I called out asking who was out there. It had the feeling of thru-hikers, and I was right. It was Shang-hi and Hurricane. I didn't recognize the name Shang-hi, but I did know the hiker. I always called him Yellow Pants for the blinding yellow shorts he usually wore, but he didn't have a trail name at the time I met him. I guess he finally got himself a proper trail name. Hurricane I was also familiar with, though I  hadn't seen him since the Andersons.

I set up camp near them and called it a day.

---

During the month of August, I'll be participating with Amanda in the Washington Trail Association's Hike-a-Thon. If you haven't already, please consider sponsoring us. (Especially me!) The folks do great work helping to fix up and maintain trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail and help make thru-hikes such as mine possible. If you enjoy reading this blog, consider giving something back to the trails that make it possible. Thanks!

Holy Naked Hiking Tortugas!

June 21: The first day of summer was bright and sunny, as well it should be. I also had a decision to make: the solstice walk. The first day of summer is often known as Hike Naked Day among hikers, and for over a year, I've been thinking about trying it myself.

Most of us get into our set, established ways. It's comfortable, though often times, kind of boring as well. Sometimes, when I start feeling trapped in a gutter, I want to do something out of my comfort zone. Something a little bit scary, but not necessarily dangerous. And over a year ago, I started thinking about hiking naked for Hike Naked Day. Somewhere remote, well off the beaten path, where I may very well not see any other hikers all day long.

This day, I found myself camped near Kearsarge Pass. I had seen a few people camped on the other side of it, but it seemed doubtful that there would be a lot of folks camped so near the tailhead. It was early in the morning. And a weekday, which would likely limit the number of day hikers in the area. I estimated that I was about an hour's walk from the trailhead. It was a little close to the trailhead--who knows how many day hikers used it--but it was early in the morning on a weekday in the middle of nowhere. How many people could there possibly be? It seemed entirely possible I could hike all the way to the trailhead not seeing anybody at all, I thought.

Yes, I would hike naked. I think. I waited for the sun to rise--it was a bit cold out, and a little warmth in the air would be nice for hiking naked. I ate breakfast like normal, then started packing up my pack. At the end, I took off all my clothes, slipped on socks and shoes (I did need to hike, after all), put on sunglasses and my hat (still need sun protection for the eyes!), and slipped on my pack. The pack bulged a little larger than normal since I stuffed it with the hiking clothes I usually was wearing. The downside of hiking naked was that one's pack is heavier with the unused clothing. But I was naked, and I was ready to hike!

I normally wear a waist pack, and wondered if I should do so for Hike Naked Day or not. It's convenient, being able to grab my maps, sunscreen, camera, or snacks without taking off my pack. It would partially hide certain important parts of my anatomy, but it almost seems like I was trying to hide myself. It's more a matter of comfort, though, not hiding, and finally decided to wear it as normal. It didn't fully cover me anyhow.

I need pictures, though. Nobody was around to take photos for me--thank god--so I set up my camera on a rock, set the self-timer, and rushed over to get in the picture. I sat down on a rock, crossing my legs, hoping to get a picture with all the pertinent stuff covered to make it safe for posting publicly and online. =) I took several photos, hoping at least one of them would be usable.

I chose not to apply sunscreen. It was still early in the morning and the trail was largely shaded, and I'd only be out for an hour before I hit the trailhead. Not long enough to worry about burning any sensitive parts.

Photo session over, I started hiking. Naked. I had been hiking for about five minutes, watching my feet closely as I hiked over rocks and snow, making sure not to slip or trip, when I heard a woman's voice ahead of me shout, "Hike Naked Day! Woo-who!" I hadn't seen the person, and the exclamation startled me. At least whoever it was seemed to take my being naked okay. At the same time, I looked up to see who it was that caught me hiking naked. It was two girls, neither of whom I recognized, which I considered a good thing.

As I passed the first one, I stopped long enough to ask what her name was. I wanted to make sure I had the name to accurate report my naked hiking experience in my blog, and I figured I should at least learn who the first person to catch me was. She introduced herself as Fidget, and her friend as Anne. I was a little too shy to stay and talk long. I just wanted an accurate record of who caught me hiking naked. (She later posted her account of our first meeting on her blog, if you're interested in reading her point of view.)

About ten minutes later, I passed another hiker--Mr. Mountain Goat--and I recognized him the moment I saw him. I last saw him near Warner Springs and had been reading his hiking blog whenever I got a chance. So when I saw him hiking up the trail, I exclaimed, "Mr. Mountain Goat!"

He looked up at me, "Err, have we met?"

"It's me! Green Tortuga!" I said cheerfully.

"Hey, Tortuga. You look.... different.....?"

"Yeah, I'm naked! Happy Hike Naked Day!"

We chatted for a few minutes. He seemed to have trouble looking me in the eye, his eyes shifting around for somewhere safe to land while talking. Finally, we shook hands and continued on our separate ways. (To read Mr. Mountain Goat's version of our meeting, read the Glenn Pass section of his blog entry. We were on Kearsarge Pass, but he lumped his second hike over Kearsarge Pass with Glenn Pass.)

I passed several other hikers on my way down--nine in total, though only Fidget and Mr. Mountain Goat were thru-hikers. Anne was out for a section hike with her friend, Fidget. The other six were day hikers. One older man with a large dog worried me a bit. "Please, don't stick the dog on me. Please...."

But they all seemed too surprised at my nakedness than anything else. They seemed largely speechless, and I tore past them before they regained the ability to speak. I also passed nearby a camp with half a dozen or so folks by a lake. Their camp was slightly off trail, for which I was thankful, and I tore past quickly hoping I'd get through before any of them even noticed me. If any of them did notice them, they didn't call out or draw my attention.

I could see the trailhead from the distance, and about five minutes before I figured I'd reached it, I stopped to put my clothes back on. I needed to hitch a ride into Independence, and I figured my chances were better if I wasn't naked. Anyhow, it was Hike Naked Day. Not Hitchhike Naked Day. I had nothing more to prove. =)

At the trailhead, I bumped into Tom and Evan. I first met them at a restaurant in Idyllwild, and I saw Evan a second time doing trail work just before the trail crossed Interstate 10. I asked Evan if he was doing trail work out here too, which seemed to confuse him. Turns out, he's actually a thru-hiker, and had stopped for a couple of weeks to do trail work when I met him in Idyllwild. Tom gave me an orange and an offered a ride down into Independence which I happily accepted. I didn't even have to stick out my thumb, and I already got a ride!

Evan was packing his pack with a boatload of food to feed an army. Well, maybe not an army, but at least enough for three people. He was planning to hike up to the PCT to meet the two Israeli girls and resupply them, saving them the effort of hiking over Kearsarge Pass and going into town. Lucky girls! Tom and Evan weren't entirely sure if they were still on schedule or not, though, so I told them where I last saw them the day before and that they had planned to camp exactly on schedule near Bullfrog Lake. They seemed please to get solid information about the girls whereabouts. Or at least confirmation that the girls were where they were expected to be.

Evan headed off up Kearsarge Pass, and Tom drove me into Independence. I checked into the Winnedumah Hotel, a nice bed and breakfast. It cost a little more than I wanted to pay, but they had a computer available for use which sold me. And since I was the only thru-hiker who checked in, I had the computer all to myself the whole afternoon. Got a lot of work done on Atlas Quest during that time. =)

Independence is a tiny little town with one main street, two gas stations, and a Subway restaurant. There wasn't much in town to do, but I was perfectly happy using the computer most of the day. Resupplying was a little tougher. I went to both the Chevron and Shell station convenience stores, picking up about a week's worth of supplies from their meager selections. I was pretty happy with most of my food, except cereal of which neither had anything I particularly wanted. I ultimately settled for a box of Lucky Charms and another box of Fruit Loops, but I wasn't happy about them.

As dusk rolled around, mean-looking clouds filled the sky. It didn't rain, not that I saw, at least, but I wondered about how the other hikers were fairing in the mountains. I found myself thankful that I was safely tucked under a roof.

---

COME ON! If I can hike naked, certainly you can throw a few bucks towards the Hike-a-Thon! =) 

During the month of August, I'll be participating with Amanda in the Washington Trail Association's Hike-a-Thon. If you haven't already, please consider sponsoring us. (Especially me!) The folks do great work helping to fix up and maintain trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail and help make thru-hikes such as mine possible. If you enjoy reading this blog, consider giving something back to the trails that make it possible. Thanks!

The Monster Under the Bed

June 20: Forester Pass. This was the part I feared since I took my first steps in Campo. Forester Pass is the highest point on the Pacific Crest Trail, towering 13,153 feet above sea level. There's not really any way around the pass--the pass itself is the lowest gap through this particular range of mountains. That's right, we aren't actually going over the top of a mountain at this lofty height, but just passing through a low gap in the ridge. With the horror stories of the Sierra snows, this high point worried me. Could I get through? Would it be too dangerous? This was the monster hiding under my bed. It was probably nothing, but it worried me. It's worried me for months.

So far, the snows were nowhere near as bad as I had feared. Mount Whitney climbed more than a thousand feet higher than Forester Pass, but Mount Whitney was an optional side trip. If that didn't work out, I could just turn back and continue along the PCT. I had no plan B if Forester Pass stopped me. This was the only 13,000-foot pass on the PCT. If I could get through it, I thought, I can get through anything.

So I woke up this morning, a little excited, a little apprehensive, and as ready as I'd ever be. I'd be making the trek with Noga and Shani, two girls from Israel. When I heard them moving in their tent, I called out, "Boker tov!", a Hebrew good morning. I managed to do this without even looking at the notes I took the previous night about its correct pronunciation--the phrase just seemed to pop into my head without effort. The girls seemed amused at my greeting.

We lost the trail in the snow almost immediately upon starting out. The snow wasn't especially thick, but it blanketed the ground erasing almost all traces of the trail. Even the footprints of hikers before us tended to fan out, making it impossible to follow a distinct path, but it was hard to get lost. We followed the canyon ever upwards, matching up peaks and lakes with our topo maps, and as long as we stayed along the canyon bottom, we were pretty much assured of being on the right track.

Noga applied some new sunscreen to her face, a zinc compound that turned her face a stark white like the walking dead, warning Shani that the stuff was terrible and not to use it.

We finally got close enough to identify Forester Pass itself, a small gap along a ridge that looked absolutely vertical from our position. The ridge itself was almost completely clear of snow because it was too vertical to support much, but it looked seriously steep. Rock climbing kind of steep. It looked... intimidating.

We stopped near a lake to rest and eat a few snacks, and Charmin caught up with us. We had seen her hiking behind us for at least a half hour now, but she had been too far away to identify. Noga and Shani guessed it was Charmin, but I told them not likely because otherwise Hasty would have been nearby, and there was only one hiker. But they were right--it was Charmin.

As she approached us, finally close enough to identify, Shani (I think, maybe it was Noga?) whispered to me, "How do you say 'Good Morning' in Swiss-German?" I whispered back, "Gwita morka," and as Charmin approached, Shani called called out, "Gwita morka!"

Charmin smiled and said, "You have a good teacher!" Shani had nailed the pronunciation. If it was me, I would have stumbled over the phrase a couple of times before getting it right. Charmin probably thought we had rehearsed the phrase long before she came along. 

But the natural question, the one running through my head, at least, was what happened to Hasty?

Charmin explained that Hasty had gotten ahead of her but didn't realize it, so he was ahead and trying to catch up with her. So she was now trying to catch up with him. The Israeli girls and I looked at each other, not really believing that Hasty somehow passed us without us noticing, and we asked how she could be certain that Hasty was ahead. "Footprints," she explained.

She had seen his footprints in the snow, and they were fresh. So obviously, he had gotten ahead of her, but he didn't realize it and was rushing ahead trying to catch up with her.

"I don't think he's ahead of you," I told Charmin. "None of us have seen him all morning, and it seems impossible that he could have slipped past us without us knowing. We saw you coming from a half hour away!" It was a clear day. We were well above tree line. Visibility was awesome, and there was only one way into and out from Forester Pass. He may not have followed precisely in our footsteps--the trail was nowhere to be seen--but it was inconceivable that he could have actually passed us without us seeing him. Charmin had been the only other hiker we'd seen all day.

"No, he's definitely ahead," she insisted. "What are the chances of someone wearing his exact same boot? And the tracks were fresh!"

I don't know what the chances are of two people wearing the exact same boot, but I suspect it's a bit higher than three eye-witnesses who claimed that Hasty couldn't have possibly passed us. I shook my head at the whole fiasco. They were supposed to be watching each other's back, and here they've already lost each other. I'm not sure how that could have even happened in the first place the way Hasty always seemed to hover over Charmin the day before, but it happened.

Noga, Shani, and I continued on. The last great climb to Forester Pass. As the slope increased, I stopped long enough to put my microspikes on. The snow was still frozen solid early in the morning, and microspikes excelled on frozen snow. Especially when the slopes are steep and a slip or fall could lead to a long plunge.

I plowed up the slope like an ant on an anthill. It was remarkably easy, I thought. Noga and Shani were a bit slower, but they also didn't have traction devices for their feet either, so I'd find a good place to stop and wait for them to catch up. Charmin rested a bit longer after we took off, then she charged up the slope at a phenomenal pace. I'd never seen her hike so fast uphill. She passed Noga and Shani quickly, then passed me near the top of the pass as I waited for Noga and Shani.

Near the top, there's a snow chute on a near-vertical rock face. It's the one place I looked at and thought, "Oh, that could be dangerous. Really, really dangerous." I was a little worried about Charmin going over by herself, so I watched her cross the chute and scramble to the top of the pass, making sure she made it through okay.

"How's the view from the top?" I yelled up at her.

"It's AWESOME!" she replied.

"How much snow is on the other side?" I asked. We were climbing up the south-facing slope and there was a lot of snow on this side. I had fears it would be even worse on the other side--the north-facing slope.

"A lot!" she replied. Something to the effect of "as far as the eye can see." Drats.

She pointed out that she could see someone down below, on our side of the pass, hiking up to Forester Pass. "It's probably Hasty," I told her, still convinced that Hasty was behind her. "At the very least, it might be a good idea to wait long enough to identify who it is that's coming up," I suggested.

"No," she insisted, "Hasty's in front of me."

We did cause enough doubt in her head to at least leave a note for Hasty at the top of Forester Pass, but Charmin charged down the other side of the pass and out of view.

Once Noga and Shani caught up to me by the snow chute, I pulled out my ice axe and crossed myself, burying the ice axe to the hilt in the snow with each step. If I slipped, I did not want to slide down that slope. The snow was still frozen too, so the ice axe was very secure. It could easily hold my weight.

I got across in a couple of minutes. The chute wasn't very wide--just a scary, heart-thumping traverse. I used previous hikers postholes to put my feet in, so even my feet were incredibly secure. It's hard to slip out of a hole in the snow a foot deep. All-in-all, the snow chute's bark was worse than its bite. It turned out to be pretty easy.

I watched Noga and Shani cross the snow chute next, then scrambled up to the top and to the highest point on the PCT. And I saw snow. Lots and lots of demoralizing snow. A small, black dot was moving down the slope--Charmin.

When Noga reached the top and looked back, she saw the hiker below us who was approaching. "That's probably Hasty!" she said.

"Yeah, I know," I told her.

"Too bad Charmin didn't see him."

"Actually, she did. She's still not convinced that it's Hasty, though."

"She saw him, and she still left?!" Noga was incredulous. "She didn't at least wait long enough to identify the person?"

"Yep. I don't think Charmin is as good at tracking footprints as she thinks she is."

It surprised me, that Charmin wouldn't take the word of three eye-witnesses who said Hasty was behind her. It seemed like a terrible decision on her part. Not as bad as the one to spend the night at the top of Mount Whitney, but still, it seemed like Charmin was making a lot of bad decisions. At least she wasn't in imminent danger because of this one, though.

Noga, Shani, and I rested at the top for a bit, finally charging down the other side. We last saw Charmin, a dot on the horizon, about a half hour after she left the top of Forester Pass. The other dot, coming up the pass, was still unidentifiable, but we had no reason to wait.

The snow had started softening here, fully exposed to the sun, and we plowed down the snow quickly. A few hundred feet down, I took a heavy step downward, heard a snap, and a strap on my pack flew out.

"$#!^!" Having a broken pack going through the highest pass on the PCT seemed like immensely bad luck. I stopped to take a closer look at the damage.

A plastic bar holding the strap in place had broken--not the strap itself. It wasn't even a sewing problem, which heartened me a little. For those who read about my West Coast Trail adventures, I used a homemade pack in which my sewing skills failed miserably. I created another homemade pack which had been holding together very well, so when the strap snapped, I assumed there was a catastrophic sewing failure. So I was rather pleased to see that the failure was in the buckle, not my sewing. However, a sewing failure I could resew by hand. This buckle.... I couldn't fix this buckle by hand. I needed a replacement.

I tied the strap in a knot around the buckle to hold it in place--at least until I could get into a town to replace it--and continued down the slope.

Near the bottom of that first big slope down Forester Pass, Hasty caught up with us. The dot behind us was, indeed, Hasty, as we had suspected. "You have quite a task of catching up to Charmin," I told him. "She's hauling ass trying to catch up to you!" Then, almost as an afterthought, I added, "We tried to convince her that you hadn't passed us, but she didn't believe it."

Hasty, true to his name, moved on quickly, trying to catch up with Charmin. I wondered how long it would take for him to catch her. Eventually he would, but he might have to hike all day to do it. Eventually, Charmin would realize that he couldn't possibly be ahead of her anymore. At least Hasty could be certain that Charmin was indeed ahead of us. If he had his doubts, we certainly removed them.

A little further down the pass, we reached a small cliff. I wanted to go around the right side because it looked easier and less steep, but our maps showed the trail veering off to the right and Noga and Shani wanted to stick as close to the trail as possible, even if we couldn't actually see it. "How about we go our own ways, and I'll meet you at the bottom?" I suggested. Why not?

I lost sight of the two girls almost immediately, but figured I'd pick them up at the bottom of the cliffs. It took longer to get down than I thought, and I wondered if they had beat me down or not, but I still didn't see them anywhere. I went a little further down the canyon, hoping to pick up the actual trail and would wait for them there. The canyon was so wide, it would be easy to pass someone without knowing it. The rocks, trees, and bumps in the terrain could hide a lot out here, so it seemed like a better idea to find the trail and wait on it.

Except I couldn't find the trail. I waded deeper down the canyon, scouting for the trail through the increasingly large patches of dry ground, but the trail was elusive. I couldn't find it. I walked for nearly an hour, unsure where the two Israeli girls were, not sure if they were ahead of me or behind me. "The Charmin and Hasty syndrome," I thought, snickering. I shouted out occasionally, but never heard a response.

After over an hour, I finally found the trail. It took me by surprise, in fact. I crossed a creek, whining to myself about having to get my feet wet--again--and found myself standing directly on the trail when I reached the other side. "Sweet!"

I followed the trail a short ways, looking for a good place to stop and wait for the girls. At this point, I started feeling more and more confident that I was ahead of them. They didn't hike especially fast, and I had scrambled down the pass pretty quickly. Even if they beat me down the initial cliff where we separated, I suspected I hiked down the rest of the pass quicker. I knew they intended to get down near the creek and follow it down along the right side until the trail appeared, so I followed the trail down until it hit the creek at a campsite.

"There's noway they can pass where I'm not and me not see them," I thought. At this point, the snow was largely just patches, and I felt safe enough to travel on my own again. But I didn't want to ditch the two girls completely, if for no other reason than I didn't want them to worry about what happened to me. Did I get lost or break my leg out in snow somewhere, needing help? At the very least, I wanted to let them know I got down okay and to not call out the marines.

I waited for a little over an hour, but the girls never arrived. I didn't want to wait much longer--I still hoped to hike out over Kearsarge pass that afternoon and get into Independence to resupply, which was still a long way off. Finally, I wrote a note to the two girls and left it on the trail for them to find, letting them know I made it down okay and thanking them for their company.

Then I pushed on.

The rest of the PCT that day was relatively quick and easy. Near the turnoff for Kearsarge Pass, I passed a group of hikers going northbound. One of them asked I had any sunscreen I could provide--he had forgotten it and was getting scorched in the snow. Since I was hiking out, I gave him the bottle I had, which thrilled him to no end. He couldn't believe his luck. "Is there anything you need?" he asked me.

"No, not really. I'm already going into town to resupply," I told him. Then I remembered my broken strap buckle. "You don't happen to have an extra one of these things?" I asked, pointing to the broken buckle. I didn't really expect anyone to carry extra buckles, but I figured it didn't hurt to ask either.

"As a matter of fact...." the guy looked through his pack and found a buckle, but it was a little too small. Nice try, though. His friend said he might have one, though, and ruffled through is pack, and found one! I was shocked. I hadn't even gotten off the tail yet, and I already found a replacement buckle! I thanked them over and over again, then continued over Kearsarge Pass.

Kearsarge Pass is an 11,700-foot monster pass, not even on the PCT. The trailhead was nine miles away from the PCT, over a major, snow-covered pass. It wasn't a dangerous pass, or scary in any way, but annoying since it was nine arduous miles--one way!--to get to the trailhead, then another long hitchhike to get into Independence. As far as places to resupply go, this place was incredibly out of the way.

So why use it? Because there just aren't many places to resupply in the High Sierras. I could have carried 10 or more days of food to get to a resupply point closer to the trail, but that much food is a lot of weight to carry around. I probably would have done it, but Charmin had selected less food and a resupply in Independence, so I spent much of this section of hike grumbling that I'm still being affected by Charmin's decisions even though we aren't hiking together anymore. I just didn't have enough food to push on to the next possible resupply point. I needed to stop here, whether I liked it or not.

After passing over Kearsarge Pass, I started racing the sun. I'd hiked over 20 miles that day, over two major snow-covered passes, and it was getting late. I lost the trail in the snow again, and fumbled around bushwacking trying to find it again, slowing me down further. Finally, I decided to set up camp. I might have been able to make it down to the trailhead before sunset, but it was iffy, and I figured my chances of getting a ride into town that late slim to none. Best to camp here, where it was comfortable, and I still had plenty of daylight to cook and relax for a bit. Go into town tomorrow.

Long after sunset, when the stars were out, I saw of a flash of red light. I looked up from my sleeping bag, and saw the silhouette of a hiker wearing a red headlamp. "Hey there," I shouted. "You lost?"

A couple of more hikers came up behind him. "No, just doing a little night hiking." Then they quizzed me about the amount of snow on Kearsarge Pass. I provided what information I could, and they continued on. I don't know who they were or why they were hiking so late at night, but I wished them the best of luck, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

---

During the month of August, I'll be participating with Amanda in the Washington Trail Association's Hike-a-Thon. If you haven't already, please consider sponsoring us. (Especially me!) The folks do great work helping to fix up and maintain trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail and help make thru-hikes such as mine possible. If you enjoy reading this blog, consider giving something back to the trails that make it possible. Thanks!

Boker Tov!

June 19: It was damned cold outside when I woke up. The elevation where I camped was about 11,500 feet--the highest I'd camped so far--and I was completely surrounded by snow on all sides in my little patch of dry ground. My socks I noticed first--they were frozen solid. I knocked them on a rock, and they didn't flex an inch. Frozen solid.

I ate breakfast, packed up my pack, put on a pair of dry (and unfrozen) socks from my pack, then went to put on my shoes and discovered that my shoes had frozen solid as well. Absolutely and completely frozen solid. I put the toes of one foot in the shoe, and squiggled my foot around trying to get it to go into the shoe, but it refused. There was no flex in the shoe at all. I huffed and puffed in it trying to thaw it out enough to fit my foot in, but that didn't seem to get anywhere fast. I considered lighting my stove to thaw out the shoes but felt that was too much hassle. Finally, I gave up and put on my camp shoes instead. I'd hike in those for the first couple of miles and let my shoes thaw out as as the day warmed up.

A short ways down the trail, I found the trees where Charmin and Hasty had set up camp--next to a lake, and right next to a sign that prohibited camping alongside the lake. They both still appeared to be asleep, but I wished Charmin a happy "Gwita Morka!" and continued on. My main purpose with the greeting was to wake up Charmin. I wasn't trying to be mean or anything, but rather I did so for two reasons. One, I wanted to make sure she knew I had passed through and that I was no longer behind her, and two, I wanted to wake her up in the hopes that she wouldn't dwaddle around all day and actually leave me waiting at the trail junction for two hours like she alluded to the evening before.

At the junction, I retrieved my bear canister, safe and sound. I set my shoes and socks out in the sun to thaw and dry. Then I waited for Charmin. I read from a book I had. I wrote postcards. I wrote a letter to Charmin, afraid I might chicken out saying the things I wanted to say, or even get too choked up to say them at all. I wasn't sure if I'd actually give the letter to Charmin, though. I really wanted to talk to her, not leave a Dear John. I also sewed up some of my clothes that started getting rips and tears.

As promised, she did keep me waiting for nearly two hours. Hasty hung back with me for a few minutes while Charmin went off to retrieve her bear canister, and I wondered if they had planned it that way. Hasty tried to make some talk with me, about him coming between Charmin and myself, even suggesting that maybe he should just go on on his own. "It's too late for that," and I didn't much want to talk to Hasty at the moment anyhow. Even if Hasty left Charmin and I in peace, the damage was already done. Charmin would probably reset me for driving him off, and. I still had issues with some of the decisions that Charmin was making without my consent.

Charmin got back with her bear canister, and the three of us sat around, rather awkwardly, not saying much of anything, before Hasty excused himself and went down trail leaving Charmin and I alone to talk.

I won't get into the details of that conversation--it seems kind of private to discuss on a blog--but it was a difficult one. We parted on good terms, though. She wanted us to stick together at least through Independence (the next trail town where we intended to resupply), but I insisted that we needed to part ways before it seriously damaged our friendship. The one thing I had asked of Charmin was to watch my back. I trusted her to do that, and she failed me miserably going up Whitney. No, I didn't trust her anymore, and I didn't want her as my hiking partner anymore.

And anyhow, the snow wasn't nearly as bad as we had feared. I'd be fine hiking on my own. There are lots of other hikers around anyhow. I think she felt a little sad about the whole situation, eventually concluding that, "This sucks!"

"Yes, it does," I agreed. "Definitely not awesome."

We talked for nearly an hour, or at least it seemed that way to me, gave each other a big hug, then Charmin went up the trail in search of Hasty. I still had to pack up my possessions and get my shoes on. After three hours of sitting in the sun, they had definitely thawed to the point where I could put them on once again.

Once back on the PCT, I hiked alone, and already started feeling better about the whole situation. Hiking without Charmin was the right thing to do. I was told that two of the creeks ahead were considered "dangerous," but I didn't see any warnings about the crossings in my information and I stayed skeptical.

As it turned out, the two creeks were a lot deeper and faster than anything we had faced before then, but I still wouldn't have called them dangerous. The fast-moving, ice-cold water came up just past my knees, and a fall was certainly possible, but it wouldn't have been dangerous. Uncomfortable, miserable, and wet, yes. But it wasn't deep enough or wide enough to take me downstream very far.

I lost the trail completely in the snow over the Bighorn Plateau. It wasn't steep or dangerous snow, just annoying. The trail was buried, and the snow deep enough to posthole which is slow and exhausting.

Anyone watching the crossing at Tyandall Creek would have been amused to watch my crossing. It was late in the afternoon, and I figured I'd camp on the far side of the river for the night. I didn't want to put on wet clothes in the morning, however, and since I was alone, I decided to take off my shoes, my socks, and my pants, then cross the river. =)

"It'll be good practice for Hike Naked Day," I kept telling myself. Like Good Friday before Easter, it'll be "Hike Pantless Day" a couple of days before Hike Naked Day.

I crossed the creek without any mishap, however, put on my pants again, and started to set up camp for the night. About ten minutes later, a couple of girls arrived at the creek, and I went over to take pictures of them crossing "the most dangerous creek on the trail" (so far). (Needless to say, I didn't get any pictures of myself crossing!)

The girls were Noga and Shani, from Israel. I had heard about two Israeli girls hiking the trail together, but this was the first time I had met them, and they told me they planned to camp a couple of miles further up, as close to Forester Pass as possible, to get over it first thing in the morning, and they invited me to join them.

I was a bit leery about Forester Pass. Forester Pass is the highest point on the Pacific Crest Trail, cresting at 13,153 feet above sea level. I'd seen terrifying photos of Forester Pass, even in the latest issue of the Pacific Crest Trail magazine that I carried in my pack right then. If snow was a problem, it would be found on a 13,000+ foot pass. And with Charmin gone, I was left to face it alone. I'd probably be okay, but still, I was leery, and more than a little worried about what I would find.

So when the girls invited me to join them in camp for the night and to go over Forester Pass the next morning, I jumped. "Give me a couple of minutes!" I quickly broke down what I had already set up for camp. I had barely begun setting up camp, so it only took me a few minutes to get everything back in my pack and my shoes back on.

We hiked another mile or two up the trail, among a small group of trees, surrounded by snow on all other sides, and absolutely amazing views up and down the valley we camped in. The elevation was probably close to 12,000 feet above sea level, and after having my frozen shoes the night before, I put my wet and dirty shoes in an extra bag I carried, put the bag in my pack, and slept on my pack, hoping my body heat would prevent the shoes from freezing solid again overnight.

While cooking dinner, I asked the girls what "good morning" was in Hebrew. "Boker tov," they told me. I spelled it out, exactly like it sounded in my ears, then asked them how it was really spelled so I could write that down too, and it turns out that it was spelled exactly how I had written it already! I told them about always wishing Charmin a "gwita morka" in her native Swiss-German language each morning, and it just seemed like a fun thing to do. "At this rate, I'll know how to say 'good morning' in a dozen or two different languages by the of the trail!"

After the sun set, we all went to sleep. I don't know what the girls were thinking, but my thoughts turned to Forester Pass. It worried me. If I could get past the highest point on the PCT without any trouble, I'd feel a lot more confident about my decision to "go it alone." And how fortunate that I happened to hook up with two other hikers just this side of Forester Pass right when I did. I wouldn't have to go it alone for this pass, at least.

---

During the month of August, I'll be participating with Amanda in the Washington Trail Association's Hike-a-Thon. If you haven't already, please consider sponsoring us. (Especially me!) The folks do great work helping to fix up and maintain trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail and help make thru-hikes such as mine possible. If you enjoy reading this blog, consider giving something back to the trails that make it possible. Thanks!

Highs and Lows

June 18: It was Summit Day. It was the day we would conquer Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States at 14,505 feet above sea level. If there was going to be issues with snow, today would be the test. Charmin and Hasty woke up, joking to bring the "22-season tent" to climb "Mount Everest." Haha.

Early in the morning, four us had to cross a wide stream. It wasn't dangerous or deep, but we still had it in our minds to keep our feet dry. I examined the possible routes across and caved immediately--I just walked through. My feet were wet, but hopping from rock to rock seemed a bit sketchy. If I missed, I'd be a heck of a lot more wet than just my feet. Sneezes examined the options, and decided to do the rock-hop method. He almost fell in once, and still ended up getting one foot wet at one point after losing his balance. Charmin examined the river, sat down, took off her shoes and socks, then walked across. And Hasty followed the stream upriver for quite a lengthy distance until he found a better place to cross. Four people, with four completely different methods for crossing a creek. We all made it across, however, some with wetter feet than others. =)

Near the ranger station, Charmin dropped off most of her food in the bear canister in a bear box--along with many other hikers headed to Mount Whitney for the day. Mount Whitney was about 8 miles off the PCT, so once we reached the summit, we'd have to backtrack back to the PCT. No sense carrying a boat-load of food all the way to the summit and back again! I decided to hide my own bear canister on the trail itself a short ways ahead. It seemed kind of pointless to put a bear canister in a bear box!

Hasty and Sneezes hiked on ahead, which left Charmin and I alone, which I took the opportunity to use for a little talk. The day before, it became painfully obvious that Hasty had a huge crush on Charmin. He hiked 35 miles out of Kennedy Meadows in a single day to catch up with her (using the flimsy excuse that we wanted to "get away from the Michigan boys"--hikers that hadn't even arrived at Kennedy Meadows yet). It was also painfully obvious that Charmin enjoyed his company. And he had this annoying habit of following Charmin around like a lost puppy dog.

So now that there was a brief period of time when I had Charmin alone without Hasty hovering nearby, I asked her if she still wanted to hike with me through the Sierras. Given the surprising lack of snow, it didn't seem as important for us to watch each other's backs anymore, and I didn't really want to get between any budding trail romance between Charmin and Hasty. That's just awkward.

But she convinced me that I was still needed, and comforted that our partnership was still strong, we continued on. A short ways later, we caught up with Hasty who was sitting on the side of the trail, and I started taking out my bear canister to hide it among some rocks or bushes when I heard Charmin say some comment about spending the night on Mount Whitney.

I turned around. "What?" This was news to me. Mount Whitney was only about a 12 mile hike away from where we camped, and I expected us to do the full round-trip from the PCT and back. I didn't want to hike a measly 12-mile day. Fine, if the snow hindered our progress or something, but to intentionally hike only 12 miles? And why? To camp on a cold, exposed mountaintop for the night?

"But the sunset tonight and the sunrise tomorrow morning will be spectacular!" Charmin insisted. Hasty was watching us, and didn't seem the least bit surprised at the revelation. I was pissed, but didn't really want to argue about it with Charmin right there with Hasty watching and simply grumbled. Fine, I'll survive one 12 mile day, but the decision made me angry, and it made me angry that she popped this information on me at the last minute. I was about to leave behind all of my food except for snacks for the afternoon, and now I needed to make sure that I had enough food for a dinner, breakfast, and snacks for the next day. If she sprung this information on me five minutes later, I wouldn't have even had the option to spend the night at the top of Mount Whitney--I wouldn't have had enough food to last the night.

As the trail ascended ever so higher, the snow got progressively more challenging. We finally lost the trail completely in the snow, but navigating its approximate route wasn't particularly challenging. It wasn't even particularly dangerous. The blanket of snow we walked on was relatively flat. We could slip or fall, but it wouldn't lead us down a steep slope to death. For the highest peak in the contiguous United States, the trail seemed remarkably flat. A little postholing was happening, but even that wasn't especially bad.

Charmin told me she had a headache, and I worried it was a symptom of altitude sickness. (Another good reason not to spend the night at the top of the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States, I thought!) But she said she got them all the time back in Switzerland, every couple of weeks or so, so it wasn't that unusual for her. Except that this was the first headache she'd had since starting the PCT.... I told her if gets any other symptoms of altitude sickness, though, I want to know about it.

Further up, we stopped to rest and eat a few snacks. Hasty continued to hover over Charmin, asking about additional symptoms she might be having of altitude sickness. Which annoyed me to no end--I'm the one who's supposed to be watching her back. Charmin went on about feeling guilty that she was slowing us down, and Hasty replied that it wasn't a problem, "We have all the time in the world."

I felt like throwing Hasty off a cliff. My pack only had enough food for seven days, and I'd already eaten three days of it. I'm glad Hasty had all of the time in the world, but I certainly didn't. I was still pissed that I'd only be hiking a piddling 12 miles that day already. Though admittedly, I wasn't exactly in a rush to get to the top of Mount Whitney either given that fact. If Charmin wanted to sit around and do nothing for an hour, it certainly wasn't a problem. It just meant that I'd have an hour less at the top to sit around with nothing better to do.

As we got closer to Mount Whitney, the trail's slope increased dramatically. The tread itself was still gradual, but the slope along the mountain rose to near-vertical positions. This had two effects: It cut the amount of snow dramatically (it couldn't pile up very deeply on such steep slopes), but it make the little bit of snow that was sticking to the slopes considerably more dangerous. The "you slip here, and you'll slide down a long, long ways before your body comes to a stop" kind of thing. To avoid the snow, I'd cut switchbacks and scramble directly up the mountain. Which had its own little dangers. The rock was not solid--much like a sand dune with a bunch of larger (and still unstable) rocks piled on top. I caused more than one rock slide in the process, but it still felt safer to me than going across the treacherous snow traverses.

At the last trail junction to the top of Mount Whitney, the slope largely leveled out again. And we seemed to be above the snow level--the trail still had a few small patches, but it was once again easy and largely non-threatening. We passed a dozen or so hikers already heading down the mountain.

I let Hasty and Charmin pull ahead of me. I was in a foul mood and didn't really want to be around either of them at the moment, and I certainly had no rush to get to the top just to sit around for hours to wait for the sun to set. I hadn't mentioned it to Charmin, but I suspected I was starting to feel mild symptoms of altitude sickness myself--fatigue, and even a little dizziness. Walking across a field of boulders where I lost the trail, I'd have to carefully set my foot down, make sure it had a firm setting, then put my weight on it.

I had failed to fill up with enough water to last the night--I kept thinking I'd find another creek. At the last patch of snow I could find, I realized that there were no more creeks, so I filled up my bottles with snow right then and there so I wouldn't have to come back down for snow again later. And I rested. I sat around for a half hour or so, admiring the view. And it was a beautiful view. On top of the world.

Eventually I continued on, thinking that Charmin would probably start to worry about what happened to me. At the summit, I saw two hikers I didn't recognize come out of the hut, and Charmin and Hasty were nowhere to be seen. Probably in the hut trying to stay warm. It was blistering cold, and the wind was ferocious. The hut had two doors, so I walked up to the one I saw the two hikers come out of and whipped it open to see an enormous pile of snow blocking the door, and Charmin and Hasty cry out, "Tortuga!"

It took a moment for me to process the unexpected pile of snow in the doorway. It was rather a surprise. The room in the hut was a lot smaller than I expected, like it had been divided into several compartments, and why would they have done that? And the inside was dark. None of the windows were open, and almost all of the light coming into the room came in through the door I had open. On the other side of the pile of snow, Charmin and Hasty were sitting down, shivering. I scrambled over the pile of snow--more challenging than you might have expected--and Charmin told me, "We're going back down."

I was thinking slowly, I guess. "We're going back down Mount Whitney?"

"Yes, it's too cold up here. Drink and eat what you need, then we're going back down."

I started doing the math in my head. It was already late in the afternoon, and there weren't exactly a lot of places to stop and camp halfway down the mountain. If we go back down, we had to make sure we could get all the way down before dark. Frankly, I was happy at the idea of not camping at the top of Mount Whitney since I never liked it in the first place, but I found myself annoyed once again that Charmin is making decisions without even consulting how I feel about them. And once again, Hasty seems to already know about these decisions before I'm even aware of them. Guess Charmin forgot to bring her 22-season tent.

Even trying to keep warm in the hut seemed like a bad idea on Charmin's part. It was like an icebox with the pile of snow in it. A dark, cold icebox. She'd probably be warmer by finding a windbreak outside and laying down in the sun. She'd probably have found it warmer had she arrived earlier in the afternoon instead of taking her sweet old time hiking up in time for the sunset. Needless to say, I was more than a little annoyed by her.


I stopped for a few minutes to rest at the top, then left the hut to take photos of myself at the tippy top of Mount Whitney and to look for a letterbox. Admittedly, I was anxious to get back down the mountain before dark, but Charmin's attitude had pissed me off enough that I liked the idea of spending time to look for the box if for no other reason than I knew she was freezing her ass off waiting for me to finish. And thinking, how ironic--because I thought we were spending the night up here, I probably took a good half hour longer getting to the top than necessary. Charmin spent the last half hour freezing for no other reason than bad decisions she had made. It was petty, but it made me feel good. Even then, had she stuck with me instead of Hasty, she could have told me that she changed her mind much earlier and she still wouldn't have had to sit around waiting for me to show up.

I found the letterbox, then went back to the hut to stamp in where I didn't have to fight the wind. When I opened up the door, Charmin and Hasty had each other in a hug, and jumped back from each other like I caught them having sex. Hasty stuttered something about Charmin being cold and trying to keep her warm, and I just rolled my eyes thinking, "Yeah, good line. That's why you two look so guilty. I don't want to deal with this @*%#*"

I stamped in and rehid the letterbox, then the three of us started down Mount Whitney. We were the last ones left on the mountain, and would likely be the last visitors of the day.

Going down, Hasty stuck to Charmin like glue, and I took my own route off-trail through the rocks to avoid patches of snow. I'm not sure exactly when it hit me, but somewhere coming down that mountain, I knew Charmin and I wouldn't be hiking together anymore. Mentally, I tallied up the reasons:

* She had Hasty watching her back. She frankly didn't need me for anything. I was feeling pretty darned useless at this point.
* The snow in the High Sierras hadn't been anywhere near as bad as I feared, and I wasn't entirely convinced that I needed someone watching my back anymore.
* It was awkward getting between Hasty and Charmin's budding trail romance.
* Charmin's making decisions--big decisions--that I not only think are stupid, but she's not even getting my opinion on the matter. Hiking together was supposed to be a partnership, but I was feeling more like a lap dog trotting after wherever she told me to go.

Basically, it wasn't working out anymore. I wanted to talk to Charmin about the problems, but held off since it was important that we get into camp before dark, and I didn't really want Hasty around to listen in either.

Eventually, I passed Charmin and Hasty in my quest to make camp as quickly as possible. Charmin told me that she'd like to camp in the trees, which I would have liked too, but I eventually stopped short of the tree line. The sun had set and it was getting dark. I didn't want to set up camp in the dark. But I found a nice piece of dry ground next to a creek and set up.

I wondered if Charmin and Hasty decided to camp further up the trail than I did, also choosing to stop at sunset, but they eventually passed through my camp a half hour later. It wasn't pitch dark yet, but it was getting close to it when they arrived, and I expected that they would want to stop and set up camp, but Charmin didn't.

"I want to camp in the trees," she said. Hasty wore a blank expression on his face that seemed to say, "I want to camp wherever Charmin camps."

This really pissed me off some more. I don't think Charmin would have continued on by herself, but with Hasty hovering over her, she wouldn't be by herself. I felt outvoted, two to one, and Hasty didn't actually put out a vote. Charmin came over to me--I was in my sleeping bag trying to stay warm--and whispered that we really needed to talk, and I agreed whole-heartedly, but that she really needed to get into camp before it got any darker. "We'll talk tomorrow," I told her.

She suggested meeting near where the trail intersected the PCT again, where we had left our bear canisters, to which I readily agreed, then she told me she'd be there by around ten or eleven o'clock. "It can't be more than an hour walk away!" I said. "Yes," she said, explaining that she wanted to take an easy 12 mile day tomorrow and intended to sleep in.

#*@$! I didn't want to sit around two hours waiting for Charmin so we could have a "talk." I want to do MILES! I waved Charmin off. "Fine, I'll meet you there in the morning." I was pissed at the idea that I'd have to wait for her for a couple of hours so she could sleep in late, but I swore it would be the last time I would ever wait on Charmin again. Tomorrow morning, I we'd have our "talk," then I'd start hiking on my own, at my own pace, as far as I wanted to each day.

Charmin gave me a hug, then her and Hasty were off to find some trees to camp in.

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During the month of August, I'll be participating with Amanda in the Washington Trail Association's Hike-a-Thon. If you haven't already, please consider sponsoring us. (Especially me!) The folks do great work helping to fix up and maintain trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail and help make thru-hikes such as mine possible. If you enjoy reading this blog, consider giving something back to the trails that make it possible. Thanks!