PCT day 40 - mile 816 to mile 835 (Mathers Pass)

"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 rest of the climb is pretty standard.

And now comes the part where I did probably the top 3 most stupid thing in my life.. I climbed to the top and got so overconfident at this point (wow I've done it, no ice axe! easy!) that I decided to take a glissade (a slide made out of ice) downhill from the top of the pass. I didn't take into a consideration A - how early it was, snow was still very hard, B - how bloody steep and long it was, what's worse I decided to take a VIDEO of it, and I think that was my final pitfall. I went on it, lost balance within two seconds of sliding, both of my trekking poles went flying away and when I reached the bottom of it the phone fell off my pocket and carried on sliding downhill until I lost sight of it.. and then I hovered over my right arm, it looked like I ran it repeatedly through a fine cheese grater, it was bleeding quite badly and looking like a real mess.

For whatever reason at this point I was worried more about the gear than my own arm.. I grabbed one of the trekking poles which ended it's journey quite close, ran uphill where I could see the second one sticking out of the snow. Once I had them both back I went downhill looking for the phone, which luckily stopped few hundred meters down on a rock sticking out from the snow! Nothing got damaged (I'm writing this on that phone, good Chinese brick). Now it was time to address the  arm.

I kept on squeezing it with my shirt to stop the bleeding and I walked towards one of the streams to wash it. Coldness of the water (and weather) helped to minimize it, I washed it and now I had to dress it somehow, but I had absolutely no first aid items (another lesson for the future) all I had was a leukotape for the blisters and.. toilet paper, so I improvised a bandage out of that hoping I will meet someone who can help me.

But the trail was empty for the next four hours.. There was a lot of animals on this section of the trail but no humans. At about 11am I finally stumbled upon a hiker called Fuel and asked him for help, he gave me a tube of antibiotic cream and a sterile dressing. When I asked him how he finds the trail so far, he answered: "It's tough as hell", at this point I could not disagree.

I went few more miles until I found a suitable stream to wash the wound again, then I dried it in the sun applied antibiotic and put dressing over it, wrapping it all up with my faithful leukotape. As Fuel caught up with me I gave him a pop tart to thank him for help as he mentioned before that he's running low on food.

There is a place along the path tomorrow called Muir Trail Ranch which has first aid items, so I will probably detour to change my dressing there. I'm planning to stay in the mountains for the next three days (unless of course injury gets infected, then I will have to change it). I'm camping tonight three miles away from Muir Pass, which although still covered in snow is meant to be far easier than the previous passes.

Trail is still absolutely stunning, high Sierras keep on delivering with its amazing peaks, wild streams, waterfalls, meadows and creeks. Nothing is hidden behind the trees, so as you walk you have a constant landscape extravaganza.

Just as a warning, I will include picture of the wound at the bottom of the post so if you're squeamish don't scroll down. It doesn't look that bad anyway.

Mathers pass:
Fuel, the guy who helped me with first aid items:
The wound:

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