Monday, July 2nd - PCT mile 943
We're at Tuolumne Meadows the gate to Yosemite National Park and a key hiker resupply point. It’s been 65 miles from VVR that we covered in 4 days. Here's a quick recap.
First, this is Jeremy after our rest day in VVR. 🤣 He can't rest when there's social life around! He did not even bother to take a shower there, let alone do any basic laundry!
Silver Pass. Not as high nor challenging as the previous passes but gorgeous nevertheless.
Lake Virginia
Burnt area near Red’s Meadow Resort (close to Mammoth Lakes).
Coincidentally a fire has been burning nearby for several days.The air is filled with smoke and we see a noria of helicopters dropping loads of water to control it but the wind has picked up and made their work harder.
Thankfully we only hiked one day within the heavily smoke-filled area.
Mt Ritter, with lupine and Indian paintbrush flowers.
Our spirits aren't as high though. We have gone through the highest mountains on the PCT and we're hiking the last part of the exceptionally scenic High Sierras. 😢 It feels like the end of a great hike. And also our days feel a bit routine: wake up at 6 am (no alarm clock though, just the sunlight), hiking by 7:30 am (a couple of times mosquitoes warmed up early and we ran away by 6:30 am, see more below!). We hike till about 5 to 6 pm, averaging 15 miles per day on this tough rocky high elevation trail section, with 1-hour long lunch break (unless mosquitoes pressure again…) and set up camp with time to enjoy. We're usually asleep by 8pm! We need a lot of horizontal rest for our bodies to recover and repair themselves.
We don't filter water in the High Sierras. As pure as can be!
We don't see Jeremy during the entire day. He shows up at camp usually late as he takes many long breaks to snack and read his Kindle or socialize with other hikers. He lives his own hiker life and we much enjoy the parental vacations (a.k.a boot camp 😉). Several hikers have told us that the PCT hiker community looks out for him, as he is the only teenager known to thru-hike.
Thousand Island Lake
A recurring theme: the mosquitoes have turned from bad to worse. We can't stop lest we are immediately swarmed and stung through our clothing. We’re running from them and can barely stop to take pictures let alone rest, unless we cover ourselves in an armour like Muriel below.
Muriel and Jeremy hike with a headnet like many other hikers, Joao uses DEET. Mosquitoes are our main challenge. Every evening we rush to assemble the tent to lay inside, clean, stretch and eat inside its protection; amazing how a tent helps with so many mosquitoes around. Again, we're not talking about a few blood suckers flying around, we're talking about HUNDREDS of them! We had never experienced such an ordeal.
A bee keeper?
We keep hiking though and enter Yosemite National Park after Donahue Pass.
Lyell Valley (in Yosemite) from Donahue Pass.
Miraculously the mosquitoes quasi disappear on the other side of Donahue Pass! It feels so good to just stop and enjoy the view without mosquitoes!
And the Lyell canyon is gorgeous, a wide lush meadow extending for miles until Tuolumne. Our spirits come back, we've survived the mosquitoes of the Sierras! 😂
And after following the Lyell River for many miles we arrive at the world's capital of rock climbing: Yosemite and its grand granite domes.
As always we're starving. There's a joke about hungry hikers. The way to tell the difference between a day/weekend hiker, a PCT section-hiker and a PCT thru-hiker is to drop some food on the trail. The day/weekend hiker will ignore it, the PCT section-hiker will stop and consider whether it is worth eating, the PCT thru-hiker will rush and swallow it without any hesitation 😂
Friday, July 6 - PCT mile 996
We've been hiking for 4 days now since our rest day at Tuolumne Meadows. Tuolumne only offered basic camping (no showers no laundry) and a little store set up temporarily for the summer crowds under a tent. No phone network and no Wifi.
We didn't go to Yosemite Valley to avoid the Independence Day Holiday week crowds.
We're now on a 75 miles / 5 days stretch arriving at Sonora Pass / highway 108 where we can hitchhike 8 miles to Kennedy Meadows North, a hiker friendly resort ranch.
At Tuolumne we learned that a few of our hiking acquaintances have abandoned the trail due to altitude sickness. One of them even had to be evacuated by helicopter between Pincho Pass and Mather Pass; he was suffering from a pulmonary oedema! As for the 3 of us, we feel great, not a hint of any altitude issue, although we have been mostly above 9000ft (3000m) for the past 4 weeks.
The view from the PCT near Tuolumne Meadows.
The beautiful and powerful Tuolumne falls are a very popular day hike.
We often see deers with no fear of hikers.
We're hiking on granite!
We hike through a remote part of Yosemite. Mountains aren't as high in Yosemite National Park as before in the High Sierras. But the trails are the steepest we've had since we started! And the granite ground makes for bumpy uneven tough trails, very painful for our feet. This Yosemite section is actually very exhausting. Our heels and feet hurt a lot by the end of each hiking day and we feel so tired that we think we won't be able to walk at all the next day. But our human bodies were built for walking long distance (Homo Sapiens was born a nomad!), the pain is always gone by the morning. And the early leg stiffness quickly subsides for another 15-miler day!
But we think we need a long rest soon. Hopefully at South Lake Tahoe, in 150 miles approximately. The accumulated fatigue is showing. Lots of hikers have taken a long several-days resting break at Mammoth or Yosemite Valley. We're due for ours but we want to get passed the crazy July 4th Independence-Day holiday week.
Meanwhile, Jeremy keeps hiking on his own or with other hikers. He keeps saying he wants to hike more miles per day but always ends up behind us…now he does not even catch-up at camp in the evening.
He camps with other hikers, stretching his autonomy further as we go.
We hike through Yosemite from valley up to jagged crests and mountain passes to the next valley...we go up and down 3000ft minimum each day wearing our feet and knees on
exhausting trails of scree, pebbles, boulders and man made giant steps, not an easy path!
We are often tempted to stop earlier in the day at beautiful places like this but we need to keep going.🙄
River crossings continue to be challenging. We often have to get our feet wet when a convenient log cannot serve as a makeshift bridge.
A critter has chewed Joao's backpack shoulder strap during the night, we suspect because of the salt from his sweat. Joao has put his best handyman creativity to use, delivering a patentable repair with dental floss; it's more solid than thread! 😉
We've had our first bear encounter. This cute teen bear was coming towards Muriel who was then alone ahead on the trail. Thankfully no protective mother bear showed up! But another young German hiker suddenly appeared in a panic state; he had set up camp a bit further and was relaxing half naked in his tent when the same bear popped his head in in search for food and showed quite an aggressive behavior. The German fellow packed up in hurry and ran back till seeing other hikers. We were several hikers camping together that night and we made sure our food was out of reach of bears!
Meanwhile Jeremy continues to drag behind. Thankfully he has befriended a nice patient hiker about our age who enjoys his company and he's never alone. Nevertheless, we decide to take a short hike day and stop early at gorgeous lake Dorothy where we relax (a strong wind is helping to keep the herds of mosquitoes in check) and admire visiting marmots while waiting for Jeremy to hopefully catch-up.
Jeremy finally makes it to camp with us. As we suspected he is paying the price for his “experiment” with eating gluten again and is suffering from resulting low energy, eczema and even asthma, all lifelong ailments that had disappeared a couple of months ago after we had changed his diet and stopped gluten, suspecting Celiac disease could be the root cause. He admits to his gluten gluttony issue at last and also that he has just that day buried all his beloved gluten containing food! It will take him a while to recover but the lesson is a good one. He was fighting us hard with denial of his gluten issue even after he had seen the early improvements.
Sunday, July 8 - mile 1017
We're at Kennedy Meadows Ranch (North) and we got a cabin! We are very lucky as they book a year in advance! This place, nested in a beautiful pine forest by a creek, is a very unique mix of cowboy people (many horses around) and hikers! ðŸ¤
After the Dorothy lake half day of rest on Friday, we passed the 1000 PCT mile marker!
And Jeremy was (rightfully) quite proud of it!
A few miles before arriving at Sonora Pass we crossed a very unique ridge. We suddenly left granite behind and transferred to a moonlike red basalt landscape totally different. The views were spectacular all around and especially to the High Sierras behind.
The wind on Sonora Pass was blowing like a gale. Thankfully we found a row of tortured trees to shelter our tents that night. On the horizon the High Sierras were covered with thunderstorm clouds. We felt glad we had made it early enough in the season to escape this mountain danger.
The next day we finished the few miles to Kennedy Meadows North Ranch, in awe of the remaining Sonora Pass traverse unique features, one of the most beautiful and scenic pass we've been through.
Moon with flowers!
And still quite bit of snow!
And so many flowers!
Tuesday, July 10 - PCT mile 1044
We're hiking towards Echo lake, where we can hitchhike to South Lake Tahoe for our planned long rest (3 days!).
The trail is changing from the Sierras and Yosemite’s exhausting scree, pebbles, boulders and man made giant steps to mostly easy dust, our feet are relieved and much appreciate!
We progress through rolling soft mountains still around 9000ft with snow patched jagged crests on the horizon, another kind of gorgeous landscape, red basalt and brownstone soil having replaced the white granite.
We continue to go up from valley to crest to valley...
... hiking through an alternance of pine groves and grassy slopes and meadows. We walk in a colorful flower garden: purple and white lupines, red paintbrush and a collection of daisies in various sizes and colors: pink yellow white...plus so many other beauties in all rainbow colors that we sadly ignore the name of.
Forests of noble pines, cedars and fir-trees.
Friday, July 13 - PCT mile 1090
We've hiked more miles the past 3 days. Almost 20 per day! And still climbing more than 3000ft /day. We're becoming hiking machines! 😄
Flowers are everywhere and Joao has been making a photo collection.
Our last day before reaching Echo Lake, we also enjoyed a swim in a warm pond with no mosquitoes to bother us at last!
We also were spoilt with several unexpected “Trail Magic” offering tasty foods and much appreciated sodas.
Jeremy with hiking buddies from South Korea.
Saturday, July 14 - South Lake Tahoe rest 😃
We've made it to our rest point. We're at South Lake Tahoe, enjoying 3 “zero-miles” days in the comfort of a nice roomy AirBnb rental. We have phone network and WiFi data at last after almost 3 weeks without reliable connection.
We catch up on news (Soccer World Cup of course 😆), family and friends emails….
We even got haircuts for all of us! We look decent again at last! 🤣
And we escaped a very strong thunderstorm with a downpour of hailstones which we admired from the comfort of the house instead of suffering it on the trail. We can't believe how lucky we've been, we have had no rain while on the trail so far, 99% blue sky days! And the first storm hit while we are well sheltered 😆
So we've been on the trail for 3 months now since mid-April (including the unscheduled 17 days breaks in Hesperia and Phoenix along the way). We're past the PCT mile 1000 benchmark and we have climbed the equivalent of almost 7 Everest up and down from sea level since we started our PCT adventure. Will we make it to Canada? It will depend if we can pick up more speed and hike close to 20 miles per day going forward and, most of all, weather will dictate when winter starts hitting north with snow. We'd like to stay on the trail as long as possible, into October and make it to Canada of course. Then maybe even go back south and cover the 150-mile section from the Mexican border to our starting point we haven't done. But it is first about enjoying the journey, not reaching the destinations! The PCT is much too gorgeous to race through it 😀😀
PS: an excellent book both of us have loved and we recommend to those that enjoy following our adventure: The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz; about the escape of prisoners from Siberia and their 4000-mile walk down to India through the Gobi and Himalayas...an incredible but true story. In comparison our PCT adventure is a stroll in Central Park!
