Russell on the Road

Day 14: Kearsarge Pass to Arrowhead Lake

Upper Rae Lake, with Glen Pass in the background on the right

After recrossing Kearsarge Pass we took the high trail back to rejoin the PCT, following a catwalk with gorgeous views as it passed above Bullfrog Lake. Almost immediately Glen Pass loomed ahead. Passing next to a frozen lake and into expansive snowfields beginning to melt in the midday sun, we caught up to a group of hikers from LA struggling to lug themselves and their packs through the heavy snow. A series of snowed-in switchbacks near the top necessitated a steep scramble up loose scree, my feet sliding back down half a step for every step forward.

We stopped to rest and eat lunch at the crest of the pass where a panorama of the Rae Lakes Basin spread out below. Before we could get to the lakes, however, we had to safely descend down another imposing wall of snow and ice. A pair of hikers we had met coming the other way had advised us to take the middle of three sets of boot tracks to avoid getting too close to the cliff. Looking out and seeing four distinct paths of prints traversing the snow, I was momentarily at a loss. But there was nothing for it, so we gauged the options and started down one of the two middle paths, hoping it would not lead to a fall over the cliff face and sudden end to the trek.

After some scary initial slips on the ice in the shadow of the pass, we soon arrived in soft afternoon snow and slowly made our way down to the lakes. Glittering waterfalls flowed over the trail into Upper Rae Lake, where I decided to take an invigorating plunge into the cold water. The snowmelt lake felt even colder than Lake Tahoe in the winter, and gasping I immediately climbed out and onto a sunny rock to dry off and watch the deepening blue sky of evening.

Day 13: Independence

We spent the night at the aptly-named Courthouse Motel. I was glad for the opportunity to shower and wash my clothes (especially my stiff-as-cardboard socks), and even happier to enjoy a hot meal at a fancy French restaurant that for some reason graces the otherwise deserted town of Independence. The next morning we resupplied at the local Shell gas station, paying inflated prices to load up on ramen, jerky, oatmeal, and other such backpacking sundries. Meredith had also shipped a box of food to the small post office, which we divvied up between us.

We rearranged our backpacks as the temperature rose in the surrounding desert. A group of hikers took turns standing in the hot sun, trying to hitch a ride back up to Onion Valley. After two hours of trying they were still there, which did not bode well for our own hitching prospects. I walked out of the motel courtyard dreading the long, uncomfortable wait. But we lucked out again, as a thru-hiking couple from Wisconsin spotted us walking to the intersection and immediately picked us up on their way to stash some food supplies in the bear boxes at the trailhead. We camped out on a high escarpment just below Kearsarge Pass, packs and bellies full and ready for the trail ahead.

Day 12: Bubbs Creek to Onion Valley

Having nearly run out of food after seven days in the wilderness, it was high time to resupply. The only trouble was, the closest trailhead with a decent road into town lay on the whole other side of yet another near 12,000 foot pass. Thankfully, crossing Kearsarge Pass didn’t pose too much difficulty, and after a pleasant lunch on a sunny rock at Bullfrog Lake we ambled through a few minor snowfields and up some gentle switchbacks to the top.

On the way down to Onion Valley trailhead, we passed a fair number of day hikers and a few families out for a weekend camping trip. We had just reached the parking lot when a day hiker named Bill who I had briefly spoken with on the trail came down behind us. I asked if he would let us hitch a ride with him to the tiny town of Independence at the highway junction below. Not only did Bill give us a ride in the bed of his pickup truck, he also kindly offered some vegan chocolate shakes for us to quench our thirst during the short trip down! As I sat sipping my shake in the truck bed, back propped up against the cab and legs splayed out lazily before me, I watched the surrounding mountains slowly recede into the desert valley and felt content.

Day 11: Tyndall Creek to Bubbs Creek

Forester Pass. The very name strikes fear into the hearts of many a thru-hiker (at least in a high snow year). While Whitney posed a significant challenge, it’s an optional side trip from the PCT and only involved one tricky snow traverse (which you could avoid by scrambling straight up the rocks). But there is no avoiding Forester Pass. You either go over it, or go back.

The approach started easy enough as we followed a well-worn boot track across gently sloping snowfields. As we closed in on the pass, I kept looking out for where the trail might pass over the jagged line of mountains in front of us. By the time we arrived at the base of the peaks, with a very solid-looking wall of ice and rock directly ahead and the distant trail appearing more than 300 feet straight above, I was feeling very intimidated. I tried to practice self-arresting with my ice axe, but with the snow covered in uneven bumps from the constant cycle of melting and refreezing, I didn’t have much luck gaining speed in the relatively safe area near the bottom. So I strapped on my nanospikes, grabbed my pack, and started up the ice.

I initially followed a zigzag track upwards, stopping for brief rest breaks in occasional dry patches of broken granite. This method soon exhausted me and I changed tack to follow a shallow path of bootprints straight up the ice wall. This worked ok until I came to a point where the upward track disappeared and another set of boot impressions appeared about six feet off to the left, with only a tiny foothold in between. I would need to awkwardly cross one leg over the other in order to get to the new track, a balancing act in normal conditions and downright dangerous on the side of an ice wall 200 feet above the valley floor. I paused for a minute to calm my nerves, readied my ice axe, and took a couple of quick but steady steps across.

Several switchbacks and a snow chute later, I was at 13,200 feet looking down into the first deep valley of Kings Canyon National Park, my trail home for the next 75 miles.

Day 10: Crabtree Meadow to Tyndall Creek

After the challenging climb of Mt Whitney, we decided to take an easy day meandering our way to the base of Forester Pass. Although low in terms of mileage, the hike involved three large creeks that required careful planning to cross safely. At Tyndall Creek, we followed a pair of German hikers about a third of a mile upstream to where the creek split into three tributary streams. Stepping my sandaled feet into the icy, fast-flowing water was both exhilaratingly refreshing and slightly painful at the same time.

As I started to doze off for the night a sudden shaking rocked the tent, jolting me fully awake. A magnitude 7.1 earthquake had struck near the town of Ridgecrest (about 100 miles to the southeast). It was the most powerful quake to hit California in 20 years, and though I had previously experienced plenty of earthquakes while living in Lake Tahoe and the Bay Area, this was the first time I had felt one while lying in a tent in the middle of the wilderness. Disconcerted, I slowly settled back down to sleep, hoping that the quake had not dislodged any large boulders on the high pass we had to cross the next day.

Day 9: Mount Whitney

Most PCT hikers wake up and get going well before dawn to attempt scaling the highest mountain in the continental US. However, I had made plans to meet my friend Meredith up at the Trail Crest junction (where the trail from the PCT meets the main trail from Whitney Portal on the eastern side) at noon, leaving me some extra time to sleep in.

Leaving my tent, camping gear, and most of my food behind, I headed out soon after sunrise. It was a beautiful morning, and I enjoyed a leisurely trek through the valley past several shimmering lakes on the approach to the long series of switchbacks leading up to Trail Crest. The snowfields were still frozen and hard, making for relatively easy going if not so easy navigating. After straying from the trail, I ran into a few fellow thru-hikers returning from their own summit attempts. Surprised that I started out so late, they warned me of a dangerous snow traverse about halfway up the switchbacks.

Sure enough, I soon came to the large patch of steeply angled snow, with a well-worn track of bootprints leading about 100 feet to the other side. I strapped nanospikes to my suddenly meagre-looking hiking shoes, took out my ice axe, and started slowly across. Even though the snow held relatively firm, I tried not to look down the vertigo-inducing slope to the valley floor hundreds of feet below. Thankfully I made it across without incident, only to find a switchback leading immediately back across the treacherous patch of snow (although this time the traverse was half the length).

Reaching Trail Crest, I set my bag down to wait for my friend next to a family enjoying lunch and the fattest marmot I had ever seen. When she didn’t show for over an hour, I decided to go for the peak before losing any more daylight. Almost at a flat-out run, I crossed the long ridgeline and tackled another large (but less steep) snowfield on the way to the summit. Already breathless from the climb, the panorama of jagged, alternating brown and white mountains that greeted me seemed to freeze everything in a quiet, transcendental moment. Only two other people shared the peak with me at that late hour, and to my shock they soon began to climb directly down the face of the mountain. I quickly followed suit (but down the trail), and thankfully Meredith had arrived by the time I made it back to Trail Crest.

There are multiple reasons most people start the climb early: avoiding melting, slippery snow on the trail and afternoon thunderstorms, more time to reach the peak, etc. On the descent from Trail Crest, I noticed some people sitting next to the steep patch of snow below the traverse and heard some vague shouting and yelling from below. Assuming some hikers had decided to have some fun and glissade down the snow patch, we continued along the trail. Only after a helicopter descended into the valley and a ranger passed us going up the trail, urgently talking into her radio, did I realize something had gone wrong. I later learned that a man had slipped on the soft afternoon snow of the traverse, sliding down the mountainside and breaking a number of ribs. The incident hit home to me the serious dangers of mountaineering, and it remained at the forefront of my mind as I prepared for the high passes ahead.

Day 8: Chicken Spring Lake to Crabtree Meadow

“You should count that as a bonus mile,” a climber said to me as I came back to camp after digging a cathole as far from the lake as I could get in the snow-filled cul-de-sac. I had been pushing myself fairly hard in order to get to Mt Whitney by the 4th of July, and had another 17-miles to the staging area at Crabtree Meadow. Not wasting any time, I started out and soon crossed the boundary line into Sequoia National Park, the first park of the trail.

The day also included the first significant creek crossing at Rock Creek. Having heard the horror stories about hikers being swept downstream and drowned by the swift currents, combined with the high snow levels and being alone, I ate my lunch while nervously waiting for another hiker to come along and make sure I didn’t die. I later learned my caution was needless as a German hiker I had met in Kennedy Meadows appeared from the other direction (although he did so after hearing of treacherous conditions on the passes to the north, which did nothing to ease my nerves). I crossed over the creek on a solid but obstacle-ridden log, and trudged my way through another broad, slow-moving creek to camp at Crabtree.

Day 7: Death Canyon Creek to Chicken Spring Lake

After a beautiful sunrise, I trekked up to a ridge overlooking the desert valley to the east. I passed a hiker talking on his phone, likely one of the final spots with cell service before we got into the remote Sierra wilderness. The trail then took a long circle around the appropriately-named Horseshoe Meadow, a popular entry point to the high mountains with a narrow road snaking back down to the town of Lone Pine.

In the late afternoon I reached the junction for a short spur trail to Chicken Spring Lake, where a thru-hiker wearing a kilt was filtering water at the lake’s outlet. At an elevation of 11,000 feet, a thin sheet of ice still covered the shady side of the lake, and the surrounding snowfields made finding a dry spot for my tent difficult. Luckily a friendly section hiker had staked out a small clearing, and as dusk descended several more hikers rolled into the makeshift camp. A large blister had formed on the inside of my left foot, and previous attempts to drain it myself ended in miserable failure. So I was even more lucky when another section hiker stopped to make dinner at the lake and kindly showed me how to properly deal with the increasingly painful blister. Enjoying the company, we swapped stories and advice before the cold and exhaustion sent everyone to their sleeping bags.

Day 6: Monache Meadow to Death Canyon Creek

I left the Kern River and its magical bridge behind, passing a small garter snake sunning itself in the trail as I hiked out of the meadow. During a long climb that criss-crossed a small but strongly flowing stream, I came across a number of vibrant snow flowers growing out of the needle-strewn ground. Based on the high snow levels through the previous winter and spring, and everyone from fellow hikers to a local rancher back in Inyokern warning me of difficult conditions in the High Sierra, these plants were surely a sign of the snow to come.

Indeed, after reaching the ridge I came across my first tiny patch of snow along the trail. That morning I had made tentative plans to meet John for lunch at the high point, but with him nowhere to be found I continued down through some buggy meadows until finding a nice dry spot to camp in the rocks above Death Canyon Creek (much nicer that it sounds). Unfortunately instead of mosquitoes the site turned out to be infested with ants, and I quickly downed my dinner and took shelter to watch the stars flicker into sight through the mesh ceiling of my tent.

Day 5: Kennedy Meadows to Monache Meadow

Leaving Kennedy Meadows (after a hot coffee and hearty egg sandwich, of course), I followed the trail north along the Kern River and through a large burn zone. I stopped in the shade at the crest of a hill to have lunch with a hiker from LA named John, who was out for a week-long trek and would be leaving the trail after only seven days via Kearsarge Pass and Onion Valley.

We hiked together for the rest of the day through an expansive subalpine meadow scattered with pink and yellow wildflowers, and eventually reached a popular campsite on the bank of the south fork of the Kern. A bridge crossed the river nearby, and when I walked over to filter water for dinner seemingly hundreds of swallows were flitting around from underneath. A glance under the bridge revealed this large colony of mud-built swallow nests as the birds continued to dart to and fro, catching insects (keeping the mosquito levels at the camp pleasantly low). I sat down below the bridge to watch the swallows as evening rolled in, and the serenity of that moment continues to be one of my fondest memories of the entire trek.