“We’re gonna go drink wine in the cave. Do you want to come? It would be more ultralight” – E.B.
Days 58 – 63
Miles 790 – 880
This is it! The most famous, and iconic, 100 mile stretch of the PCT. We had already gotten a teaser from Forester Pass, but during these 6 days we were teleported into a different word, a magical realm you only see in movies or photos. It was a journey in and of itself. It’s not entirely the beauty that makes this stretch so memorable. It is beautiful, but the high Sierras have this sort of grandeur about them that you don’t experience in your average mountain range. You can camp “low down” at 11000ft in a meadow and be surrounded by peaks jetting up another 2000-3000ft. The 8000ft summits in Nor-cal I’m climbing right now make me feel on top of the world, but in high Sierras you just feel small. It’s pretty incredible. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows though, the hiking was brutal, with the heaviest pack I’ve had to date, and even the mental battle was tough.
The first day out of Bishop ended up being pretty chill. I was still pretty bummed out to leave so I went 11 miles to Rae lakes and had a nice swim. This was one of our two options to camp as there was a bear box, and pretty much all of us had food that wouldn’t fit in our bear cans due to the 6 day carry. Glen pass was pretty tough after already doing Kearsarge in the morning. We met some climbers at the top who had just done Charlotte dome which looks awesome.
We camped next to Milkman and Toots, a laid back, likable couple who had done the AT together. I admire the strength of a relationship people must have to hike together and sleep in the same tent for 5 months.
The next 5 days followed a similar pattern: wake up very early, hike over a pass, and get close to the next pass. Doing the passes early in the morning is important because the snow is still hard. Hard snow + micro spikes = easy hiking.
The second pass on the list was Mather pass. This day was really tough. It was a really long ascent with lots of elevation gain, I think it actually ended up being more climbing than Mt Whitney, although the top was “only” at 12000 ft. Danger wise it was perfectly safe, barely any snow and nothing remotely sketchy. Most of the day was climbing. We didn’t get too much of a descent because the next pass, Pinchot, is only 10 miles past Mather.
Pinchot wasn’t quite as chill as Mather. The climb was much easier on paper but we were still tired from the crazy climb the day before. The ascent was chill, the descent was slightly less so. There was a small amount of scrambling involved which as a rock climber is really seen more as a fun bonus than something scary, but we did have to use the spikes to get down the snow banks on the north side.
The next day was Muir Pass. The valley in-between these two passes was one of my favorites. At some point I noticed a deer hardly 20 ft from me on the right staring at me, so I stared back. After looking at each other for 2-3 min I finally got bored and moved on.
Fun fact: according to the rangers, you are no safer from lightning inside the Muir Shelter than you are outside. That just seems impossible to me but maybe someone smarter than me can let me know how that works…
Two of the guys in our group have been raising money for charity during their PCT hike, and one of their donation goals was a plunge into an ice-lake. We chose one right by the top of Muir Pass, maybe 5 minutes after the top. They jumped in and filmed a video for their donors, and then the rest of us got in for fun.
At this point in the section I was so tired and exhausted I don’t really remember details, so I’m just gonna show a couple of my favorite pics taken sometime in the next day and a half.
This section ended for us at Vermillion Valley Resort. The Brits were out of food so we couldn’t quite make the push another 30 miles to Mammoth.
Final thoughts:
- I imagined this part of the trail would have tons of stuff to write about but I found the opposite to be true. As opposed to the desert where you’re trying to distract yourself from your surroundings, this was about taking it all in. There was less chatter and goofing off. We planned our days, hiked hard, got to camp and went to bed early.
- This was the most mentally challenging part of the trail yet, despite the beauty. It was just so damn hard and exhausting I can’t imagine hiking it while not in PCT-shape. And I don’t have plans to come back soon.
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