July 1. With May and June two calendar months spent on trail. 😊 A special day in many regards…
Started hiking 7.15am as usual. Mile 1000 at 1pm!!!
We celebrated the milestone with a very long (too long) lunch break.
In the afternoon, the scenery changed… Really looks different to the high Sierra. Different trees, different mountains. Also water is gonna be more scarce. I am so excited about the change to come.
Since weeks if not months it is the first day we saw clouds in the sky.
Pitching tents early at 6pm at mile 1006. Tomorrow is the day we will come to town again to resupply.
I plan to take videos tomorrow to document a bit a typical day on trail. Let’s see.
Got up with the sun at 6am. Quick breakfast with coffee, a bar and a poptart. The mosquitoes were already annoying, so I dressed with long hiking pants. A deer showed up while I had breakfast. It got pretty close and started eating flowers.
Left camp around 6.45am. Donahue pass was just 3.5 miles and 1500 feet altitude out. Made it to the top at 8.30am. Short break with a cliff bar – enjoying the view. The smoke from the fires near Reds Meadows were clearly visible in the distance.
Donahue pass
Descending into Lyell Canyon.
Lunch break at 11am at mile 934.
Came into Tolumne Meadows around 3pm and ran into Panther, pitched my tent next to him. We went down to the shop/grill, had a burger.
Resupply shopping was mediocre… While the small shop had a lot of supplies, there were no dinners like Mountain House, Knorr or even mashed potatoes. So I bought a lot of tortillas, a jar of peanut butter and lots of tuna. Guess my dinners for the next 5 days will be mainly cold. Also no TP to buy… Will have to snatch that from the toilets on the campground I guess…
No sign of Cactass and Tinkle, guess they moved through quickly and are on their way into Yosemite Valley. Saw with Colin at least one familiar face. He was resupplying at the shop but seemed to plan to move on today.
Will enjoy my breakfast tomorrow morning at the grill and move out then.
And guess who showed up in the evening? Cactass and Tinkle returning from their hitchhiking into Yosemite Valley! They quickly did their resupply shopping, then we had dinner with beers in front of the Tuolumne shop and grill.
Breakfast on my last town day at Looney Cafe in Mammoth Lakes. Mammoth Lakes had been in smoke from nearby fires since days.
Waited in the hotel lobby for my package from Amazon playing billiard… Short before 1pm, the same driver from yesterday showed up with my Amazon order! Charged the Plantronics headset, firmware update… And go.
Took the free city bus to The Village, bus to the skilift area, second bus to Agnew Meadows. Heard from hiker friends that they had left the trail soon due to the smoke in the area… Hope it won’t be too bad.
On trail at 2.30pm.
Trail started steep uphill in the smokey air, not so nice, hard to breath.
Hiking without Cactass and Tinkle who had left town a day earlier, I saw some new faces on trail, also Martin aka Panther from Munich.
Used my Katadyn BeFree the first time… Amazing! Love it. Also enjoyed the fresh veggies (mini peppers) I can afford to carry. The resupply only needs to be good for about two days since I will be getting into Tuolumne Meadows then.
Passed Thousand Islands lake – memories from my JMT hike.
Went over Island pass around 6pm.
Camped at Rush Creek at mile 926 about 7pm.
Chatting with Panther over dinner. Mosquitoes are annoying… Going into the tent early.
What a cold morning. Unexpected. We all had ice in the tents respectively on the sleeping bag.
Started walking around 8am towards Mather pass.
Long ascend to Mather pass. But I remembered the scenery quite well from my 2016 JMT hike. Beautiful.
At the end there was not so much altitude to do and we reached the peak around 10am.
The descend however gets much more difficult than expected. Large snowfields, no visible trail but only footprints leading down steeply. Cactass and Tinkle use their microspikes for the first time. I go slow and try to kick steps into the frozen snow where possible. Cactass glissades on purpose and breaks a piece of her backpack frame (not on purpose).
Coming to tree level, the scenery changed again and a long descent from 12000 to 8000 begins.
After the Palisade lakes, the descend gets steeper via tight switchbacks.
For tomorrow, we decided to take it a bit slower and only approach Muir pass. According to the snow report, Muir would have the biggest snowfields during ascend and descend – so we want to play it safe and climb it very early.
Got up at 6am, condensation in the tent. Lazy breakfast, still cold without the sun. Started hiking 730am. After a couple miles back on the PCT.
Climbing Glen Pass, made it to the top at 9.30am. Watched two hikers cross the next snow field, one starts sliding down. Luckily only a short distance until he finds hold again.
Crossing the snowfield was not so difficult after all. Followed the rocks instead of footprints in the snow a lot of times.
Beautiful view on the Rae Lakes. Lunch break here at 11.45am.
After the one pass comes the next in the Sierras… After descending from Glen, we started the approach on Pinchot pass. We soon passed the 800 miles marker…
After starting the long ascend towards Pinchot, we walked along a valley with a river rushing down a wide flat rock bed. We ran into three other hiker Irish Toni, Smalls and Michael when we came to suspicious scene around 5.30pm.
Two backpacks lay open close to the river, with gear laying around them. A water bottle and hiking poles lay right next to the rushing river on the flat slippery surface.
A hiker was washed down the waterfall and got stuck
Another hiker belonging to the second pack showed up shortly after. She had witnessed her hiking buddy falling and had tried unseccessfully to find safe crossing over the river to get closer to him. We all decided to stay and help the rescue efforts as we could. The hiker was already in touch with SAR (search and rescue) with her Garmin InReach and was confirming position and describing the situation. I tried to keep her at a safe distance from the river and throw over some supplies to stuck hiker – emergency bivy, some food and sleeping bag to keep warm as well as his headlamp. We communicated by handwritten notes, wrapped around a stone in a plastic bag due to the loud waterfall.
About 30 minutes later, the rescue helicopter appeared and surveyed the scene with a few fly overs. He announced his return via loudspeaker and disappeared again.
When the helicopter appeared again, he started lowering a rescuers right next to the hiker in distress. Amazing to watch the accuracy of the rescue team, considering the roaring waterfall right next to them. 10 minutes later, the hiker was lifted out of the dangerous situation.
Full video of the rescue will be available soon.
We were all still shaken when we started hiking again around 7pm to make it closer to Pinchot pass. Glad that the hiker had obviously been saved without major injuries, it also made clear how one misstep can lead to disaster.
We came to another water crossing but due to setting darkness, we decided to camp and cross in the morning. Pitched tents and ate in darkness.
The world is big 