I am done with it…

I mean the Sierra Nevada range. As I sit in a courtyard of a motel here in South Lake Tahoe, it feels like a life time ago since I left Bishop.

My fellow Trek writer Spring hadn’t been feeling well, so we decided to stay a night at the Piute Pass trailhead before heading back on the PCT. As we got up to go in the darkness, my girlfriend Monochrome wasn’t feeling well but determined she got up to go. Unfortunately, it was a quick round trip back to bed after throwing up. There was definitely a bug in our trio of a family.

The day went by in the sun, caring for Spring and Monochrome, I was still in good spirits and hopeful of heading out the next morning. We slept in, and as the sun rose we packed our tents in our packs and headed up. It took us 20 minutes to go up .5 miles and decided to turn back. Everyone was feeling a bit under the weather and as we made our way back to the trail head, I started throwing up as I tailed the others.

All and all we ended up staying three nights at the trail head and as we finally started walking up to the pass, none of us wasn’t feeling great. We managed to do around nine miles in 11 hours. We never figured out what had caused our sickness, it felt too mild to be Noro but food poisoning was out of the question as well as it gradually got all of us on separate days.

The miles between Bishop and Mammoth are a bit of a haze in my mind. I do remember that I didn’t personally really enjoy the stretch. Don’t get me wrong, it is a beautiful stretch of the Sierra. But walking up passes, post-holing and doing river crossings while recovering from being sick isn’t the best way to enjoy a thru-hike.

Talking about river crossings… As we came down from Selden Pass I finally came eye-to-eye with my first bear on trail. It definitely wasn’t in a good mood. It moved fast with rage, and intimidated us with its frothy surface. Yes, I am talking about the crossing of Bear Creek at mile 870.4. So, I am 5’11 and the crossing wasn’t too bad for me. Cold? Yes. Strong current? Most definitely. But I made it across by using my poles and digging my feet in to find good foot placements. Monochrome followed after me, halfway in it got hard on her, and I went back in the river to help her across. Holding her steady from behind and mentally supporting her. Two across, one remaining. Spring decided to cross a bit higher up, I made her wait a little bit as I could not feel my toes from being in the river twice already. She started pushing through the river and I met her around halfway where the current picked up. I pushed her from behind as the current tried to lift her up, slowly but surely we made progress to the other side just to get swarmed by hungry mosquitoes.

It wasn’t the first bear meeting I was hoping for but I was happy that we were all safely across. After we decided that every time there would be a sketchy looking crossing we would stop, assess and look for a better place to go over, and that is exactly what we did all the way to Tahoe. Working as a unit, helping each other and always waiting for each other before crossing deep or fast moving water. Guess what? We are all safe and sound here, we didn’t come across any problems. Everyone always says that hike your own hike, but remember when coming across difficult parts of the trail, it is always easier with people you can trust to help you out.

We rejoined Disco Thor just after the blue blaze to VVR. He had waited us there while we were sick. It was good to catch up with him and hear about his journey through the up and over Skurka route. The next day we post-holed up Silver Pass and continued towards Mammoth Lakes.

Mammoth to Tuolumne meadows was both wonderful and a drag. We hit some really nice snow free trail the first day and then on the second day while ascending towards Donohue Pass we post-holed our hearts out. But the feeling crossing into Yosemite wilderness made us smile, also a view of a green snow free valley wasn’t that bad either.

Deers were plentiful as we made our way down. Monochrome and I really wanted to visit Yosemite Valley but the road wasn’t open yet. We had already made up our mind of just trying to hitch when we met some fellow PCTers coming from the valley. They had road walked about 10 miles and then had took a trail into the valley. With their advice we started walking, Disco and Spring both joined us. The scenery was amazing as we strolled up the road and after six miles a car pulled up. Canyon, a ranger from the valley offered us a ride, at first he was going to drive us just to the turn-off point but in the end he drove us all the way down. Absolute legend.

Yosemite valley was all I could ever imagine and more. Sheer granite walls everywhere and at the bottom countless of boulders. Having seen it numerous of times from climbing videos it was amazing to sit in the meadow and look up at El Capitan. I even got to climb a boulder at Camp 4, wasn’t pretty with trail runners but now I can say that I have climbed in the valley.

Getting out of the place was a whole other story though. You would think hitching out of a place full of outdoorsy people would be easy. It was not. Luckily as always Chrome and Spring got the job done. First it was a cool old band van to the meadow, then a couple from San Francisco to the gas station and then a french family with a camper van for the last miles before the gate. Yes, the road was still closed and we learned that the next day is bike day. No cars, just bicycles. Stranded we thought about different plans.

The gate is situated next to a non-profit organisation that holds camps for youngsters. First we thought it was a ranger station and as darkness fell, Spring walked to ask if we could camp on their grounds. She came back smiling, the camp host took us in, gave us a feed and a few beers and welcomed us to stay the night. The next morning we sat on the closed road and watched cyclist roll by, all of them happy and yelling “bike day”. It didn’t take that long, until a worker drove to the gate and offered us a ride back to Tuolumne Meadows. He was a Yosemite resident and I really enjoyed listening to the history of the valley and all his insights of the climbing scene.

Miles came easy as the trail was snow free, a few mosquitos and river crossings before we were doing our last ascent before Sonora Pass. As we got up to the ridge line it was wonderful to look back at the snowy peaks of the Sierra range and the feeling of satisfaction of what we had accomplished in the past weeks brought smiles to our faces. We cowboy camped just before the pass and early next morning made our way down to Kennedy Meadows North

The trail between KMN and South Lake Tahoe was pure joy. Mostly snow free and our packs felt like air as we only had three days of food and no bear canisters made for easy miles. 75 miles in three days, finally it was time to fly, and fly we did. The last miles before Tahoe were done running. The Sierra range was done and dusted. It was time to head on towards Northern California.