Pacific Crest Trail

Selden Pass and Vermillion Valley Resort

Day 55 “A mountain pass a day keeps something something at bay”. I wanted to make a proverb like that but haven’t filled out the somethings yet. Anyways, a pass a day is exactly what has been going on since Mount Whitney, but today is the last of the bigger ones, and wasn’t even as big as high as the other ones. It was also much easier than the other ones as there were only…

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Pacific Crest Trail

Muir Pass

Day 54 Today I for once actually got a bit of condensation in my tent, but nothing serious, I can just dry stuff out later. As previously mentioned, I wanted to cross Muir Pass early today so that I could avoid slushy ice and post-holing through it, so I got going before the sun. It was cold as usual, but not as bad as yesterday. First obstacle of the day was a creek fording that…

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Pacific Crest Trail

Mather Pass

Day 53 Coooooold. Cold cold cold. That was how I felt when I got out of my sleeping bag this morning before the sun rose and would start to make the snow slushy on Mather Pass, which I camped less than one mile from. I wore basically all my clothing but that wasn’t enough to be comfortable and even though I was in the lucky situation of having dry shoes and socks my feet hurt…

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Pacific Crest Trail

Pinchot Pass

Day 52 Last night I camped about four miles from Pinchot pass which I intended to, well, you know, pass. Preferably it should be before the snow got too slushy, so I was one of the first out of the bat. My shoes were still rather wet and comd from yesterday’s late fording, but I had a pair of dry socks to put in them, so it wasn’t that bad. Nearing the pass I ran…

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Pacific Crest Trail

Onion Valley Campground

Day 50 The full title of this post should be “Onion Valley Campground or how a broken USB cable got me stuck in Independence and going to the toilet got me out of there“, but that’s too long for the system. Anyway, I had been to and fro about staying another night in Bishop or hitting the trail today but now felt more for getting back, so things had to move quickly for that to…

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Pacific Crest Trail

Forrester Pass

Day 49 Today so much happened, but I’m not going to say that so much happened that I don’t know how to start, because chronologically would be a good way, but after this meta discussion, I thought what the heck, let’s embrace the post modern non chronological storytelling and cut to the end. It ends with me eating dried cranberries, drinking a glass of riesling, and listening to Explosions in the Skies from the speaker…

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Pacific Crest Trail

Mount Whitney

Day 48 My alarm blasted me out of my comfortable sleep way too early. I had prepared most of the things I needed to climb Mount Whitney, which was the aim of the day and left my tent and everything that I didn’t need in there to be pick up when I got back from the ascent. While Mount Whitney isn’t part of the PCT, many or perhaps the majority of hikers choose to take…

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Pacific Crest Trail

An appetizer of things to come

Day 46 As per usual, I got up before the sun, but today it was unusually dark because the moon wasn’t up. Living in cities it is easy to forget how much light it really makes. As a result the stars were extraordinarily bright. It was also quite cold but I slept well (wearing two pairs of long johns). I couldn’t help thinking a bit about bears while trying to fall asleep, though. I took…

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