Sunday, June 27 Forester Pass Miles today: 23.2 Total: 783.5

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

27june10snow

This was a long, tough, amazing day— we made it up and over Forester Pass! After fording Rock Creek (no problem) we made the long uphill/downhill to Crabtree Meadows with deer grazing peacefully in green meadows and Mt. Whitney piercing the sky way up high. I was impressed by the new “trail engineering” –somebody put in rock steps of a decent height for us short-legged people!  And we heard from some other hikers that the snow on the Whitney ascent trail is “not bad.”  That was encouraging to hear as we headed toward Forester Pass.  (The reason we didn’t do a side trip to climb Whitney is that we’ve climbed it several times already!) 

After that came the first of many scary creek crossings, notably Wallace Creek, Wright Creek and Tyndall Creek.  Fortunately for me, they got progressively harder, so by the time we reached Tyndall, I’d had some practice on the other two.  What we did was have  Bill go first while I watched very carefully to see where the worst of the current was.  Then once Bill was across, he yelled back some advice about how to proceed, and I stepped into the cold, roaring current,  leaning into my trek poles, facing the river, and sidestepping across. If I started feeling overwhelmed, I would yell for help and Bill would get back into the creek  to give me a hand. Tyndall Creek was the worst— pretty scary, and thighdeep on me.  But hooray, I made it through all three of them!  And OK, I also prayed every step of the way across.  (Little soapbox here:  praying during scary creek crossings is not a “crutch for cowards”.  It’s a continuation of what I do when I’m just plain ol’ walking the trail, only the topic is different.  I’ve noticed that even hikers who say “There’s no God” have their own ways of coping with scary creek crossings.  Some of them just plain swear their way across!)

27june20snowfield

Bill was talking excidedly about one of his favorite spots up ahead–the Little Bighorn Plateau, which he said has an awesome 360 view of mountains all around.  He did not exaggerate!  Wow!  And best of all, it was lunchtime, so we had an excuse to stop and enjoy the spectacle for awhile.  Bill said, “Let’s not cook this time. If we just eat quickly, we might be able to make it over Forester TODAY, if we hurry.”  So we just ate some crackers and peanut butter before heading on.  As it turned out, that was the last food we got for the rest of the day.

The PCT went on up to Bighorn Plateau, and when we got there, Bill was amazed at the amount of snow.  The few areas that weren’t covered with snow were snowmelt LAKES!   Bill hikes the JMT every year right around this time, and he said he had never seen so much snow at Bighorn before.  It was a bit of a challenge to find and follow the trail.  As we climbed higher, more and more often the trail disappeared under snow. Finding it again took a lot of time, and usually when we did find it, the trail itself had become a creek.

But we persevered, and got to the point where we could see Forester Pass against the sky, but everything was totally covered in snow.  We did our best to figure out where to go, but grrrr!  Up in Oregon on the PCT around Mt. Jefferson, where the trail is often buried in snow for a long time, they have rock cairns with a stick on top to mark where the trail goes, so there is never any doubt.  I would love to have those here in the Sierras!    As we got closer to the foot of Forester Pass, we met Ranger Alison, a very helpful gal  who had just come over Forester herself.  She told us to follow her footprints, and pointed out the best route (“Straight up!”).  We could see two other hikers up ahead, who were already at the foot of the pass.  “And be careful of postholing,” Ranger Alison warned.  “I just went down all the way up to my waist, with BOTH feet trapped.  I had to dig myself out–right over there.”   Sure enough, we could see a big hole in the snow. 

Bill and I were very glad to know there were hikers just ahead of us and a footprint trail to follow, and we were making very good progress, when whooomph!  Down I went, postholed up to my waist, just like the ranger, and both my feet were instantly caught in what felt like solid concrete.  I could not move them at all.  Bill was pretty disgusted with me, because it happened near a rock (the vicinity of a large rock is much more likely to produce postholing) and he said I should have been more careful.  I felt really bad, knowing what a chore it was going to be to get out of the hole.  It was already late in the afternoon.  And sure enough, it took me a good half hour to dig out of the hole.  I am the only one with an ice axe (which was the most helpful tool), so there wasn’t much Bill could do to help.   Man, I was glad I had that ice axe, though!  If I’d had to dig myself out with only our little plastic trowel, that would have been awful.  By the time I extricated myself, my feet were freezing cold.  It was a wonderful moment when I was able to climb out of the hole, put my pack back on, and head for the pass again. 

At the foot of the pass, we headed straight up, following the “footprint trail”.   Bill breezed right up, climbing up the snow, using just his trek poles, while I followed much more slowly, chopping secure steps with my ice axe.

Note from Alexa: Hmm perhaps Bill needs the new trail name “Legolas”

27june26snowhike

We were encouraged to hear the whooping and cheering of two hikers who were ahead of us, every time they came to a stretch where the PCT switchbacks were actually visible and they could follow a dirt trail for at least a little way.  We also cheered when we reached those spots!  Finally we could hear a great outburst of hooting, hollering and cheering.  “They must have made it to the top,” we said, and that was a great encouragement, especially to me.  I have to say that for much of the climb up, I was totally terrified.  All I could do was concentrate on “the next step” and not look down. 

Near the top there was a whole stretch of nice trail, heading for the famous “Chute of Death.” I was very surprised and relieved to find that enough hikers had already crossed it so there was a relatively secure “trail” across the Chute. I was actually able to go first, and walk right across.  Amazing!  A few more short switchbacks, and by 6 pm,  we were yelling and screaming at the top, too.  (Well, to be accurate, I was doing the screaming and yelling.  Bill doesn’t go for such behavior!)   

But a couple of quick pics were all we had time for…  then it was a race to get down before dark, over snow that was rapidly becoming icier.  First comes a long traverse across a steep mountainside.  There were pretty good tracks to follow, but still scary, because if you slip here,  you’ll be a very dead duck at the bottom.  I was very tired and scared, and of course, Bill was soon way out ahead, but I kept plugging along the best I could. 

Bit by bit, we came down off the pass, on various other “steep mountainside traverses.”  The footprint trail which had been very clear now began to “disagree” and footprints headed in various directions.  Every bit of bare ground we came to was soaking wet from melting snow, and every bit of PCT trail we managed to spot was not a dry trail, but a snowmelt “creek.”   By 8 pm, we still had not reached “dry ground” out of the snow, and we were very exhausted.  We’d had nothing to eat, not even a Snickers, since noon.

But hallelujah, shortly after 8:00, we spotted the trail!  And not only that, we were able to follow it down to the first little set of campsites above Vidette Meadows.   These campsites are literally perched on the mountainside near a creek, but oh wonderful, a couple of them had dry snowless spots big enough for our tarp.  The last time we did the PCT, in 2005, this area was warm and sunny and the wildflowers were awesome and a lady was lounging in the sun writing in her journal.  Now, it was 8:30 pm, the sun was down behind Forester Pass, it was very cold, and we were both so tired we could hardly move.  I thought about trying to cook some dinner, but decided that all I wanted to do was crawl into my sleeping bag.   Before I laid my head down, I managed to figure our mileage (23.2 miles–not bad, considering the conditions) and wrote “Up & over Forester” in my journal, before I turned off my headlamp and just crashed.  What a day!  One big pass done!

Walk to Lórien: Attacked by Wargs in a barren country of red stones near the Sirannon

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