Pacific Crest Trail 2016: 7/11-7/19: Glen Pass to VVR

JMT Rock Monster.

The view from Glen Pass was spectacular. The ~3500 ft. decent, however, felt physically brutal. The thought that the following day I would do the exact same thing but in reverse going up Pinchot Pass felt mentally brutal. However, the next morning I met an interesting person and section hiker that helped make the first bit of the ascent more bearable. At first glance he looked something like a gutterpunk. He was tall and lanky, had not a bit of fat stuck to him, and a conspicuous network of veins covered his limbs. His hoary hair was cropped short to his head, and his face was tough and worn from years in the sun. His tumid pack, which was old and had an external frame, and his clothes all looked worn down by years’ worth of miles on trail, road, and rail. We hiked the first five miles up to Pinchot Pass together. This section of trail winds through a valley between Crater Mountain and Mount Cedric Wright. Foamy blankets of ice cold water splayed down the smooth, slightly convex granite facets and rushed into Woods Creek below. We were at around 10K ft. and the morning air was very chilly. As we slowly made our way, we talked about making a living, family, and hiking. He had led something of an adventurous life and spent much of his time working on boats. He had spent a lot of time in South Florida and we agreed that there was something pretentious about the boat culture down there. He was of a mind that experiences were more important than accumulating wealth. I pretty much agreed. Of course, we both understood that if one has a lot of wealth one can have many experiences. The problem is when you do not start off with that wealth. Setting aside luck, one can spend a lot, if not all, of one’s time and energy in the process of trying to accumulate wealth. Obviously this a gamble because there is a good chance you will then lose the time and energy needed for the endeavors and experiences for which you were trying to accumulate the wealth to begin with. We both agreed that many valuable things and experiences, such as travelling, hiking, love, art, and a general appreciation of the seemingly insane fact that we exist at all, are all relatively attainable without having to run some rat race. At the time I was deeply considering quitting the trail after I got to Yosemite or, if I was lucky, South Lake Tahoe. My motivations were now less about my health. By this point I was feeling better physically and more optimistic that I could finish most of the PCT after my conference. However, I was thinking a lot about my family. In particular, my grandmother, who lives near Atlanta, Georgia, was turning 90 in August. Now one way to look at it is that 90 is just another number; even my grandmother told me that I should hike and not worry about her birthday. But another way to look at it is that there is something really special about spinning around the Sun 90 times. My friend agreed and pointed out that the trail wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I stopped to take a break and my friend hiked on. I thought I might catch up to him at another pass, but I never saw him again.

Suspension bridge crossing Woods Creek before Pinchot Pass.

Sierra flora.

On the way to Mather Pass.

To the south of Mather Pass.

To the north of Mather Pass.

Mather Pass.

For most of the Sierras, there is no cell service. This basically means that for nearly two weeks there are no phone calls, text messages, emails, facebook, etc. This is actually pretty amazing. One place you do get full service is at the top of Whitney. When I was up there—sitting on top of the contiguous US—an old friend, Steve, sent me a message letting me know that he was going to being hiking south from Muir Pass over the next few days. All I could do was tell him that I was hiking north from Whitney and give him a rough estimate of when I thought I would hit Muir Pass. After awhile I had to start making my descent. Since I couldn't wait for a response, it would be impossible to try and coordinate anything more detailed than that. Steve and I know each other from Jacksonville, Florida. Steve is a super cool human. He spent many years fighting for environmental causes as a Sea Shepard. He also introduced me to chess, some philosophy, and many cool people many years ago. We both moved away from Jacksonville. Steve moved to Oakland, and aside from a time I visited him there two years ago, we had not seen one another in over four years. So I felt a bit bummed and homesick when I realized that the odds of running into Steve on the trail were very slim. But I hiked on, sometimes wondering if I would run into him, and I would check the campsites at night to see if he was there. By the time I hiked over Pinchot and Mather Passes, still no Steve. On the morning I started heading for Muir Pass, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to see him, but in a bit of trail magic, I ran into Steve and his partner Sarah! It really was a miracle: we ran into each other just about 20 minutes north of a side trail to Bishop Pass, which I was not taking and they were going to go home from. Though we only hung out for about 10 minutes, it was so good to connect with a friend.

On the trail, you learn just how valuable energy is, in all of its forms. By the time I ran into Steve, I was about three days away from my much needed resupply at Vermillion Valley Resort. My cell phone was nearly out of juice, my fuel canister was dangerously low, and I was cutting it close on food. ‘Cutting it close’ is an understatement, actually. Needless to say, when hiking 12-15 miles a day with substantial elevation gain over the passes at elevations consistently between 8K and 13K feet, you burn a lot of calories. A conservative estimate is anywhere between 3000 and 4000 calories a day. I was lucky if I was getting 2000. Now, I was actually used to a constant, subtle feeling of hunger and didn’t mind it anymore. However, I was absolutely sick of instant mashed potatoes. You can pack a lot of instant mashed potatoes in a bear can, and that was what I had been eating nearly every night since Whitney. Steve and Sarah were life savers. They had an extra canister of fuel and gave me a massive bar of dark chocolate. The previous day, I camped with some very cool people. Once of them was a really cool high school history teacher from Oakland named Joél. Joél was hiking the JMT southbound. He had some extra food and needed to drop some weight, so he hooked me up with a Backpacker’s Pantry dehydrated jerk chicken meal, which I was saving for Muir Pass. Thanks, Oakland!

California Tiger Lily.

Muir Pass was amazing. As I ascended I passed a number of small plateaus each with gorgeous, clear blue alpine lakes each pouring into the lower levels and all coming from the melting snow pack on the surrounding peaks. The trail in this section was difficult. It was not marked well and the trail was still covered with a lot of snow. I had to find alternative paths up to the pass. Once at the top of the pass, I hung out and cooked dinner—Joél’s jerk chicken using the fuel Steve and Sarah gave me!—at the Muir Hut. The Muir Hut was built in 1930 by the Sierra Club. Inside there is a little shrine honoring the memory of Muir and his conservation efforts. Collected on the shrine are little tokens that people have left throughout the years, e.g. old tools, old hiking permits, origami swans, Tibetan prayer flags, antlers, among other things. I had picked up a small wooden button about 50 miles back, which I left on the shrine. As I descended Muir Pass, I was surrounded by snow covered peaks glowing gold softly from the setting sun. Alpine lakes were strewn below me in a valley. The land was rather barren and littered with various sized boulders and sparse amounts of grass. For a moment I felt like I was exploring another planet. I set up camp by Wanda Lake, per Steve’s suggestion. The snow covered peaks slowly changed to cooler colors but continued to glow under the light of the waxing moon. In the morning I descended into Evolution Basin. The descent was steep, but the steep valley became more and more green as I humbly passed below Mount Mendel and Mount Darwin.

One of the lakes on the way up Muir.

Another beautiful shade of blue. On the way up Muir.

Southern snow filled valley below Muir Pass.

Muir Hut.

Inside the hut.

View from Lake Wanda campsite.

Moon glow.

Descending into Evolution Valley.

After twelve days on the trail with no shower and too many instant mashed potatoes, I was ready for a break and resupply at Vermillion Valley Resort. Using the word 'resort' for this place would be a bit of a stretch in most contexts, but since they have hot food, beer, milky ways, and beer it's perfectly acceptable on the PCT/JMT. To get to VVR you take a 1.5 mile side trail from the PCT to a ferry landing. A ferry comes to the landing twice a day to carry hikers over Edison Lake to the resort. Or there is a five mile side trail that climbs the cliffs and hills overlooking the lake. The day before VVR I hiked over Selden Pass and that evening set up camp by Bear Creek. I was pleasantly surprised to have some company for the evening. It was another PCT hiker who went by the name of ‘Troopa’. I briefly met Troopa 800 miles south in Julian, California. Like most PCT hikers, Troopa is a super nice and kind human being. Like everyone else, he was hiking the PCT for the beauty, for the challenge, and for some personal reasons. Troopa had just retired from a successful career as the Human Resource director of a popular health insurance company whose headquarters were located near LA. A huge reason he was hiking the PCT was to get his personal bearings back after retirement, to rediscover and reprioritize what he values in his life. (Something similar had brought me to the trail and I found it true of many other hikers.) Still, he missed his family dearly. About a week from that day his son was getting engaged in Mammoth Lakes, California, which is right off the trail. He planned one getting off trail for the engagement celebration, but had felt torn about potentially getting off of the trail for good and not going to Canada. He explained, however, that in a moment of clarity the previous day he had realized that he had gotten everything he wanted from the trail and that it was okay to stop early. I admired this decision very much. On the one hand, most hikers do set Canada as a goal, and generally when one creates a goal one wants to follow though. But on the other hand, in the process of following through with any goal it can be easy to forget that you are the one that set the goal to begin with and that you continually choose to follow through. But once these facts are forgotten and you are enmeshed in the project you set out on, suddenly the goal becomes something like an absolute ruling over you. But this is a bad state to be in for two reasons. First, a genuine adventure is arguably an experience from which you will learn many things that will be applicable even once the adventure is done. Moreover, a genuine adventure will inspire you and push you into new adventures, into new opportunities. But often when the point of the adventure becomes an absolute, the adventure becomes something dead, like printed pages with no life or meaning, or faded photographs that no longer have significance. Second, when a goal becomes an absolute, it can lead you to neglect other things you value in life, such as your health or your relationships. I think the way to avoid this and the healthy thing to do is to constantly remind yourself that you are *choosing* to do what you need to accomplish the goal. On the trail, you are continually choosing to hike day after day—the universe isn’t making you do it. And while it would be fantastic to make it to whatever benchmark you have set, such as Canada, you have to remember that it is okay to stop if you want to, especially when it involves your health or other important people in your life.

Sierra flora.

Young buck.

Sierra flora.

I think this was on the way up Selden Pass. It was pretty steep and the doe and fawn were trying to use the trail. I tried to yield, but I couldn't get far enough for their comfort. They ended up getting off trail but made it safely down as far as I could see.

Troopa was also heading to VVR the next day. I left our camp early in the morning, before Troopa. I had a little over ten miles to go and planned on taking my sweet time. So I thought I wouldn’t get to the ferry landing until around 3:00 PM and would only have to wait about an hour for the last ferry of the day. But for some reason I was feeling really good and knocked out the miles fast. I got to the landing by 10:45 AM! There was no point in sitting around for five hours, so I hiked the side trail to VVR that runs along the lake. The trail was bit strenuous in places, but I managed to make good time. Troopa arrived later that afternoon. I was also excited to see Jason, Dillon, and number of other hikers I’d previously met. I also made some new friends. That evening we all enjoyed a wonderful communion with hot food, lots of beer, and campfire laughter.

Crazy tadpole looking creatures. They were about 5 inches long. :::shudder:::

Sierra flora.

Sierra lupine.

This was taken at the top of Glen Pass. It is customary on the trail to ask random people if they want a photo taken, especially when there is a beautiful landscape behind you. All told I had about six people offer and take photos of me. I offered and took photos of about five individuals and two couples.