Last night was the coldest yet. Before I even turned off the headlamp after trying to journal (hands were too cold to write) there was frost on my sleeping bag. Around 6am Batteries got up and was shaking his sleeping bag to get the frost off. Remy announced that his shoes were frozen solid and a few yards away Chubs was trying to put on her shoes and couldn’t get them on her feet. I made a suggestion that we wait for the sun to dry out our gear and turned over to go back to sleep. It was 22 degrees! We all slept until after 7am, then began trying to get all the heavy frost off our gear. When the sun hit the rocks nearby I spread out all my gear, including my frozen shoes, to thaw.
We left the campsite at 9:30am, gear mostly dried except for wet shoes. We had made the difficult decision to hike out the side trail to Kearsarge Pass. We had a tough climb to the junction of the PCT with the Bullfrog Lake junction. The side trail was stunningly beautiful, passing Bullfrog Lake with the snowy granite spires as a backdrop. We climbed and climbed to get to the pass and I really struggled again with the climb. There were snow fields to cross that were a little scary and we had to do some steep rock scrambling to avoid deep snow. At the top of the pass we saw snow fields to traverse on the way down.
The next five miles down from 11,700 to 9,200 feet seemed to take forever as there was no trail and we once again were traveling cross country down snow fields and rock scrambles and scree side slabs. We made it to the trailhead late in the afternoon.
Thankfully Freight Train had met some Japanese hikers from LA who offered to drive all six of us to Independence, CA. We waited, exhausted, at the trailhead. Around 5:30pm we were on our way down the harrowing, curvy road from 9,200 feet to 4,000 feet in the desert below. We were dropped off at the Independence Courthouse motel where Panda, Chubs, Gloves and Jackhammer were already in their room and saw us pull up. There wasn’t a room available for six, so we hiked three blocks to Ray’s Den Motel. Securing a room, we headed for Subway where the guy working there made me the largest footlong Sub I’ve ever seen (except for Freight Train’s sub which was even bigger).
Sub, beer and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in hand, Intruder and Freight Train and I went back to our room and feasted outside on the porch. Then I took a shower. Later in the evening while the rest of the group was grilling chicken and veggies with Panda’s group at their motel, Bloody Knuckles and I sorted the laundry that the motel washed and dried for us. Just before 9pm she and I walked to the only restaurant in town, a French Bistro. There, we had apricot tarts for dessert, some red wine, then a basket of bread and butter. We walked to the register at the bar to pay and decided we needed a Trappist Belgian Ale for a nightcap. It was very surreal being in a nicely decorated, upscale restaurant after being in wilderness for so long. It was a nice break and I really enjoyed the food, wind and company in a non-hiking setting.
Strangely enough, both Bloody Knuckles and Intruder live in Ashland, Wisconsin, the town our scout troop stayed in before and after sea kayaking on Lake Superior’s Apostle Islands last summer. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned my new hiking buddies in detail. Batteries is 28, an engineer and lives in Huntley, Illinois. He thru-hiked the PCT in 2003. Freight Train is 19 and lives in Michigan near Detroit. Intruder is 24 and lives in Ashland, WI. Bloody Knuckles is 24 and she lives in Ashland, WI. Pepper Jack is 27 and is from Wisconsin; she is moving to Sheboygan after the trail to work at an art museum. They are collectively a great group and we are all working closely as a team to make decisions and take care of each other while hiking through the extremely challenging Sierras. Tomorrow morning we will buy groceries and make a decision about returning to the trail vs. taking a zero mile day to rest. The Sierras are truly amazing, beautiful and rugged!
Today’s weather: partly cloudy, snow flurries in afternoon. Low 22, high 60 (at 11,700 feet); PCT mileage: 5.7; cumulative mileage 790.2.
