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...