Section One Complete

I originally wrote this assuming I would be able to post in Kennedy Meadows, however the wifi there was terrible. I added on some at the end to cover the few days since then.

I have reached Kennedy Meadows, at mile 702.2, completing the Southern California desert section of the PCT. It has been a while since my last post so I'm not going to go into extreme detail about the last 200 miles. It has involved more windmills than I have ever seen, lots of sun, extreme heat, lengthy dry sections, loose sandy mountain climbs, and an unfortunate altercation with a swarm of fire ants that left my right leg full of stinging pain and then mildly numb for a few hours.

Of course, there were also constant impressive views of the desolate mountains. I think that mostly sums up the last few hundred miles.

Kennedy Meadows is, at least to me, the first big milestone of the PCT. It marks the first big shift in terrain and climate of the trail. Before Kennedy Meadows is the Californian desert and following it is the Sierra Mountain Range. The Sierras are the highest set of mountains on the PCT and considered the most difficult section of trail. This year those challenges are amplified by the fact that the Sierras received a record amount of snow this winter. This means that early in the season roads will still be closed, resupply points will not be available, and there will be complete snow cover above 10,000 feet. Later in the hiking season, as the snow melts, roads will start to open, along with resupply points, but the snow melt will swell the rivers and streams, making crossing them more difficult.

If everything works out, I will hopefully be hitting the Sierras right in between the super snowy, everything closed time and the full snow melt, all the rivers are impassable time. This seems somewhat unlikely. It seems like I have done a good enough job of waiting that most places will be open by the time I get to them. Some places, like the Muir Trail Ranch, won't be open until August but for the most part, roads and resupply points will be available to me. The roads that are still closed, (Highway 120, Sonora pass, and Ebbets pass) should be open by the time I get there. To try and make all of this planning and logistics go a little smoother the group of people I have been hiking with have agreed that we should do the Sierras as a group.

There are six of us that have been generally hiking together for a few weeks now. We haven't always been camping at the same location or doing the exact same number of miles but, in general, we have been sticking near each other. In the Sierras, we will be hiking as a group. On the difficult snowy sections we will move together, staying close enough that we can see the person in front of us and behind us. This will allow us to coordinate our efforts during stream crossings and difficult, snowy ascents. It will also allow the group to have some more emergency items without everyone having to carry all of them. One of us will carry some rope. Two of us will carry emergency blankets. One of us will carry a slightly more robust medkit than my current kit, comprised of some ibuprofen and duct tape.

It should also allow for better decision making, as groups have been consistently shown to come to the correct conclusion more often than individuals. This whole strategy will really go into place once we leave Lone Pine in a few days and head towards Mt Whitney and Forrester pass.

Finally, can people guess what the photo below is? It was taken with my phone so no crazy microscopic shenanigans were used.

UPDATE: The following was added later since I was unable to do anything on the internet in Kennedy Meadows.

I have done the few days from Kennedy Meadows to Lone Pine and am now at mile 744. The day leaving Kennedy Meadows was great. For 10 miles, I climbed up a mountain in a fairly desert-like climate. At the top of that climb I went through a pass and was immediately somewhere new. It was a flat field with a stream running through it surrounded by mountains. Since that moment, I feel like I have officially made it out of the desert.

The last two days have been filled with new mountain scenes on all sides. The mountaintops are now jagged, rocky protrusions that are covered in snow. The temperature also dropped significantly. Last night, the temperature got down to somewhere around 15-20 degrees with high winds and a dusting of snow. Luckily, I camped in a slightly sheltered little area and was nice and warm. I even remembered to put my water filter in my sleeping bag so I didn't need to buy a new one in town today.

Leaving here we head up to do Mt Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48, and Forrester pass, the highest point on the PCT. The next section has those challenges but it does not have any rivers that are going to be overly difficult. I'm ready to finally get to the snow fields of the Sierras!!