Campsite at mile 1003 to Kerrick Creek (mile 980)
Total PCT miles hiked: 1258
Due to our early start Keith (Starman) and I arrived at the Sierras when there was still a lot of snow, and decided it wasn’t safe to attempt a crossing given my skill level. We elected to flip up to northern California and hike southbound (SoBo) back to where we left off near Lone Pine – giving the snow a chance to melt out. During this flip the PCT milage will be counting down, but I’ll include a tally of our total milage hiked so that you can keep aprised of our progress in a linear fashion.
The trail, with it’s unending beauty and the ample free time one can devote to thinking, is excellent environment for learning about oneself. I would argue that this typically comes in the form of self reflection, especially the sort that revolves around ones priories in life. Sometimes however, the trail simply comes out and bitch smacks the ever-living hell out of you. Forcing you to decide in the feet and miles of the day just how stubborn, just how tenacious you’re willing to be.
Today was most certainly the later.
In which I learned that we were too proud and too vain to schedule such a day-but we did it anyway. In short, too full of that special brand of PCT thru hiker hubris. Tandemly, I also learned that 23 Sierra miles is dauntingly harder than 23 miles at any other point on the trail. The kind of hard where I found myself pulling my reluctant body up the final climb of the day. Behind me is chasm of granite and pine trees. Water gushing across the rocks and across the trail as it starts it’s hundreds foot plummet to the valley floor. I am learning on my poles, using my entire back along with every muscle in my aching legs to groan up this last 1,000 foot climb. Even though it’s painful in that eleventh hour burn of muscle fatigue that all endurance athletes know, I’m going to haul my panting carcass up this climb and back down the other side. Because doing so gets me that much closer to Tuolomne Meadows, where there are burgers and generic soft serve ice cream. And today I learned that apparently I’m willing to struggle over mountain passes for 12 hours just to get a little closer to a burger and some ice cream.