PCT-6

Wednesday June 27 - PCT mile 879

The breathtaking iconic California High Sierras, home to the famous 200-mile long John Muir Trail that the PCT idea started with, and which challenges hikers through successions of mountain passes at 12000ft (~4000m). Both intimidating and thrilling. Forester pass, the highest at 13000ft, is already behind us and gave us a taste of what was more to come.

Mosquitoes: they've been the chief annoyance of our otherwise gorgeous High Sierras hike.

It's been unusually hot for this time of the year. Scenic streams, creeks, lakes, swampy meadows are aplenty and so the water bounty and hot temperatures have bred milions of the blood suckers. We can't escape them, they swarm us from 6 am through late in the night; even at 12,000ft on Mather Pass some of the buzzing vampires dared bother us.

We fought back by spraying Deet extensively and hidding behind full body clothing including head nets while hiking. Pitching our tent as soon as we'd stop for the day was first priority. With everything we could possibly need stuffed in the tent we'd first use it as our bathroom for cleanup, then turn it into our kitchen (carefully managing the stove) and finally our bedroom. Amazing the many things you can arrange to do in such a small space!  We'd go out only for the “can't do in the tent” stuff with full body shield clothing, dreading the little time that a critical piece of skin would have to show for what-you-can-guess.

From our tent (without the cover fly) we'd often have magnificent views of the surrounding landscape, helping us cope with the mosquitoes ordeal.

Wildlife: no we haven't had bear encounters yet but other hikers have. We've been visited by deers in our campsites (a nice sight when just waking up!). And we have met several very cute fat marmots with no hint of fear of us passing hikers.

Now let's get the history of the mountain passes we went through one by one, hiking an average of 15 miles per day, with peaks at 17 miles on a couple of days;

Kearsarge Pass (11,500ft, an extra 9 miles off the PCT). Day 1 returning from the town of Independence after our rest day there. The brutal elevation change from 4000ft Independence up to 11000ft killed us. We felt totally drained after just 10 miles and we're deeply asleep by 7pm! The backpacks were also at their heaviest with 8 days of food loaded.

Glen Pass (12,000ft PCT mile 791, Day 2). Jeremy is crossing the snow field:

Pinchot Pass (12,000ft PCT mile 807, Day 3):

Mather Pass (12,000ft PCT mile 817, Day 4), the descent on the north side was quite intimidating down a steep slope we had to negotiate through snow and boulders:

Muir Pass (12,000ft PCT mile 838, Day 5):

Selden Pass (11,000ft PCT mile 866, Day 7):

The Best-offs of the past 7 days:

Best camping spot, no mosquitoes, perfect temperature, great views, just a mile before Mather Pass:

The mountain pass with the most snow and challenging approach, John Muir pass:

It was also the most picturesque:

The most beautiful meadow (totally ruined by mosquitoes!):

Muriel rushed her cleaning and Joao  rushed the picture and we both ran back to the tent 😂 but we still enjoyed that view through the protection of the tent net.

Where's the trail? Going North after Muir Pass.

So many pretty lakes:

Several river crossings; we've become experts at the variety of river crossing techniques:balancing on a log, boulder hopping, or just getting wet up to our thighs and holding against the raging flow like this one:

Mighty rivers down in the valleys:

And to finish these epic 7 days, a boat ride to Vermilion Valley Resort, our food resupply point:

That day Frozone (Jeremy) started hiking at 5:30am(!!!) and ran the 17 miles passing many amazed hikers to make sure he would not miss the  boat. He was running towards food!

VVR saw us busy with all the usual off-trail activities: showers, laundry, food organization (the boxes with food we mailed ourselves from Tehachapi were waiting for us there) etc. And a bit of rest….the place offers great meals too so we ate more than our fill.

Everyday of hike we've burnt at least 5000 calories with nowhere near that much we could eat and much less carry. We've lost a lot of weight, our clothes are way too big for us now. Our feet are sore from the rough rocky trail. Our skin is burnt by the sun (and snow reflection!). And we harbor bites from mosquitoes and other bugs. But we feel GREAT! A good friend of us once said this was “exquisite suffering”.🤣