I would not say exactly that the Sierra relieves you. At 48 hours of leaving Kennedy Meadows we ascended from 6,000 feet to 10,000, and that would be the lowest elevation we would see for some time. The first section includes the highest point on the PCT (13,000 feet) and the highest point in the United States (14,000 feet). There was not much time to acclimatize. But acclimatize that we had to do it.
It’s curious how to be on the path changes your concept of fear. I am full of stupid and irrational fears in normal life: fear of food poisoning, fear of social situations, fear of sharing spaces to sleep with other people. These things fill me with fear in the real world. But here, fear acquires a different meaning. Fear is to look at what appears to be a cliff and realize that the only way to pass. Fear is a snowfield with a vertical drop on the other side. Fear is a couple of anonymous eyes in the dark. There is not much space for shit concerns when your main concern is survival.
43-44 days, Miles 703.4-717.7
We pass our zero and a half working constantly on each menu element in Frumpy’s, interspersed with refueling, nap and a gigantic King Cup game, where I learned the darkest secrets about other hikers whose names I didn’t even know. Incredible what six Ron and Dr. Peppers will make you reveal. When we finally started after one last French toast, we directed the mile along the way back to path and took our first steps towards the mountains. A deceptively flat meadow soon became the classic work uphill PCT, where they realized how heavy my backpack was with the addition of all my cold climate clothes and a bear can with six days of food inside. In the first water I threw it a lot, so strong that I managed to blow a hole in the beer can that planned to drink on Mount Whitney, soaking my package with IPA nebula. Not only did I have anything to provide, but I would have to carry the sharp can of Razor for six days. It is not the most auspicious beginning.
After the mourning period ended, I wandered until the afternoon. Arrested at the next water source, I discovered that it was dry. Suppressing the strong impulse to make another tantrum (one a day is enough for a 33 -year -old), I walked along the path, listening. Indeed, a few dozen feet along the way, I heard the sounds of a running river. I climbed on some steep rocks and managed to scrape a liter of water. I know right? Just call me, Grylls bear.
The path led another impressive meadow with a mountain without snow without snow that is coming over him. I should probably have known what mountain, but I would discover it soon. Finally I arrived at the camp around 6 pm on a slope overlooking a beautiful river with dozens of swallows fluttering and diving. The mixture of difficulties and beauty of the first day would be the plan of the Sierra. And both would only increase in the next few days.
Day 45, miles 717.7-737.5
The fried fried frost did a brutal awakening, and another reminder that we were in completely new terrain. My hands took an hour to defrost while I entered in the morning, stepping on my feet to try to loosen my shoes, which had practically frozen during the night. Lesson learned: Don’t go anything Out of your store unless you want it to be a caramban in the morning.
As the path amounted above 10,000 feet, I found myself fighting the altitude. The soft earrings that I could have fed in the desert I felt like mountains, and every step was a battle, as if it were going through the water. It was difficult not to discourage. Three days before I felt like a rude to conquer the desert, pull more than 25 miles and marvel at the new strength of my body, and was now viscerally exhausted after walking two miles. But I had to remind myself that literally everything about this section was different: the weight of my package, the temperature, the land, the altitude, and cannot be expected to adapt to all that in just one day. I realized that I would not be able to open well through the Sierra as if I had the hardest sections of the desert. This was the world of mountains, and I was only living in it.
Day 46, miles 737.5-756.4
Things did not improve much the next day. The altitude was still kicking my butt; Every time I thought I was adjusting to me, the path was uphill and was panting in each step. With a great effort, I arrived at Chicken Spring Lake, but even the majestic vision of glassy water and the snowy mountains could not expel me in my bad mood. He was worried about climbing Mount Whitney in the next few days, which was 4,000 feet higher than he was currently, and generally worried that this was not even supposed to be the difficult part of the Sierra, everything that was to come. And below that, I felt guilt, he was not enjoying this part, the part that everyone says unilaterally is the highlight of the PCT, and here it was, staggering along the path and even looking at the landscape.
In the camp, my mood began to improve with the perspective of dinner on the horizon. That is, until I took off the pot of his stove hanger and spilled hot rice boiling throughout the barefoot and towards the earth. At that time I had had enough. I broke in the tears immediately, in part tears of pain, but mostly tears that I had lost half of my dinner when my food was already so strictly rationed. It was a cry that had to happen, so I lean on it, returning to my store and reading encouragement notes that my friends had given me before I left. I took my Kindle and began to read wildly for the hundredth time, smiling with a superiority barely won in the Cheryl equipment list.
Side Barra: I know that Cheryl Strayed is a controversial figure in the PCT community. From what I can say, there seems to be two main reasons why people have such disdain for it:
– She «only» walked around 1,000 miles from the path, not everything (… never claimed to have walked everything)
– She inspired a generation of Eejits to go on the PCT without preparation and without having an idea of what they were allowing to enter. I guess I can understand this a little more, but again, she never said that her approach on the path was good. In fact, she is constantly pointing out how many mistakes she made and called herself an idiot. And in addition, it is like blaming sex and the city for making young women move to New York and think that they were going to sleep with a different investment banker every night with a closet full of Chanel. People have free will, and if they choose to remove a certain message from a book or film, that is about them. You can feel how you want her, but I will always love that Cheryl deviated, because her book is what took me here. Demand me.
47-48 days, miles 756.4-775.9 (plus 15 up and down Mount Whitney)
I felt a lot, much better after a cathartic scream and a good long dream, and the 11 miles of the day passed easily. We stopped in Crabtree Meadows for the night in preparation to walk through Whitney the next day, and we spent the afternoon dropping and trying to sleep a little. The alarms set for midnight to compensate for dawn.
At 12.30 in the morning, we were out of the way to the light of what seemed billions of stars. It was the first time that walking in the dark and I was surprised how alert I felt, how all my senses intensified. We stopped for the water in Guitar Lake and then we started the long and long climb to the top. We could track our progress through the front headlights that we could see advancing in the curves ahead, and it seemed impossible that we were going up so high. We quickly arrived 12,500 feet, at which time he felt as if we had traveled a field of force: the altitude hit me immediately and we had to stop for a break. Dracula also felt dizzy, and after ten minutes without improvements, he made the destroyer but sensible decision to return, while the rest of us used to move on. To our right, we were able to see the most incredible cliff illuminated by the stars, looking like a kind of Antartican ice lid.
We finally arrive at Whitney Junction with two miles to go to the summit. Sunrise was advancing closer, so we accelerated, jumping and jumping through snow banks, without stopping to register how high we were. After what seemed days, the mountain cabin came to view just when the sun looked on the crest. We hurried to the edge and saw the solve the colors of the horizon in blue, red and spectacular oranges.
After an hour delighting in how great we were, it was time to go back to the snowbanks began to melt. It was crazy to see all the landscapes that we had lost in the dark, I felt like walking along a totally different path. I returned to the camp and forced myself to take a nap for two hours because there is no rest for the hiker; We still stayed eight miles to get close enough to pass it before overcoming it before. that The snow began to melt.
Day 49, miles 775.9-789.7 (plus 7 about Kearsarage Pass)
The morning began with a slightly less terrible alarm of the 4 am, and we were on the road for 5, the sun whose derivation powers were running against the valley. The first miles were relatively easy, until we found a huge snowfield that darkened the path. With a lot of maps and procrastinations consulting, we finally accepted that the only way to follow was through it, and we collected the careful path to reach the foot of the mountain. The curves were steep and the ascent felt endless, but at 7.30 we had reached the summit. Another day, another dollar.
There was not much time to celebrate, looking at the summit that we could see the steep snow shores that we needed to cross while they were still firm, wait for the sun to rise with it and would meet postholed every step to the waist. So crossing them, and although it was stressful, it didn’t spend much time before we went down to the floor of the Valley and stopped us for a very necessary break. It was the longest we had passed without going to the city, and the last week it had been the toughest so far, and we were all hungry and smelled terrible. With these motivating factors, we crawl up and forth.
He was running along the way, thinking about lunch, when something incredible happened. A hiker who passed the other way told me that there was magic of paths in the future. Trail Magic, 10 miles from the nearest road. It couldn’t be … could it?
A mile later, I was received by the discordant pronouncement of ‘Welcome to Canada!’ For a type mountain dress. «I hope,» was my predominant thought, but however, he comforted me when I saw that they were serving hot cheese and ham wraps and giggles. They had walked all the kitchen and food teams nine miles on a mountain pass, just to make a hot lunch for a lot of discouraged hikers, and all this before boarding the John Muir path the next day. Surprisingly that he is learning that nature can be, it is nothing compared to how incredible human beings are.
(Most of the time).
