Legs and Borders

"When you can almost taste town, Silver will kick you while your down" Hasset. Today didn't quite work out the way I imagined it, but perhaps it's for the better. First of all ascending Silver Pass was long, wet and energy consuming. It took me ages to get up there and it wasn't much better on the way down. Its probably this whole last week taking its toll on me, but hey tomorrow is town day! It was supposed to be today, but I worked out that coming down there late in the evening wouldn't make much sense, it was Rememberance Day today, so all the accomodation would be taken and I would just lose time trying to work out where to stay. So I pitched my tent few miles away from the trail head and will get to Mammoth tomorrow morning to sort everything out, perhaps even stay for the night. My bear canister is literally empty, other than few grams of powder mash potatoes which I can't even cook because I've ran out of gas, haha. It's a sad sight, I was t...

"Mother Mather and father Muir had a baby Selden who hasn't quite hit puberty yet. Selden is a very good looking child though". Mountain Goat Easiest pass yet, the difficult passes requiring working the timetable around them are coming to an end, in fact I'm camping few miles before the last one called Silver Pass. Thank God! This week has really kicked my ass in every possible way. First of all it was really cold in the morning, I woke up at 5am and started walking at 5:30. There were many stream crossings along the way before the pass, I was hopping the stones as usual, until one quite average looking stream appeared, stones were covered in ice (I didn't notice that) and were wobbly. I stepped on one, slipped tried to step on the second one slipped again and boom! I was down in the water, everything on me was soaking wet. I stood up, walked through the water to the other side, immediately opened my backpack to check if the sleeping bag and puffy jacket got wet, ...

"We will miss Sierras, in the desert everyone was like: Where the fuck is water?! In Oregon everyone will be like: Where the fuck are mountains?!" Energizer Turtle Easiest day since Forester Pass, but it started in a very draining fashion. During the ascent of Muir Pass it suddenly got cloudy and it started to snow. It carried on snowing for couple of hours and the temperature dropped significantly. I was hiking using only one trekking pole, trying to give the injured hand some rest, it backfired quickly as I stepped on ice covered rock slipped and landed on the injured hand adding few extra cuts to it, and cursing the very moment I stepped on that glissade yesterday. On top of the pass was a very good Muir themed shelter, I stayed there for a break trying to defrost my hands and face. Snow fields carried on for many miles on the descent, but since the sun never came out and it was still snowing, there was no problems with post holing people seem to have here. Once the snow p...

"Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer" Darkest Dungeon. And so it happened, I injured myself and I only got myself to blame for it, but let's start from the beginning. I camped last night very close to the Mathers Pass regarded as the hardest pass on the PCT route, I woke up early and started the ascent at 5:30am. Reached the section everyone struggles with after half an hour - it was initially a very steep 75+ wall of snow, if you make a misstep and slip there's nothing to stop you on the way down, especially when you don't have an ice axe.. After the snow wall, you have to scramble the way between rocks for about a hundred meters before reaching the trail again, except there's mainly very fine grit and most of the rocks are loose (the drop angle remains the same). I actually managed to unintentionally push a head sized rock down the slope, luckily I was there so early no other hikers were below. After you manage to go through those two sketchy parts...

"Trail magic should be renamed trail love. Magic is not real it's a trick, it's an illusion. Trail magic is real and it's not an illusion. It's the love of someone doing random act of kindness. Therefore it should be called trail love." Big Red Very short day of hiking but with the way the snow covered pass crossing works it wouldn't be safe to go through them after midday, especially the next one - Mathers Pass. It is regarded as the toughest pass in Sierras, most of people recommend not only bringing along micro spikes but also ice axe (which I don't have). Therefore I decided to hold my horses and camp just a mile away from it tonight, it's 1pm and my job for the day is finished. Better safe than sorry, it's siesta time. The Pinchot Pass I went over today was by far the easiest yet, it was way more difficult on the way up (few miles of snow beforehand) than down, Forester and Glen's passes were the opposite way around.  Lots of stream cr...