Category: PCT Thru Hike

At mile 1172.3. Hiked 14.7 miles today.

First let me revisit that avalanche chute at Sugar Bowl Ski Area. 

Wait, as I’m writing this, I heard a sound outside my tent. It is a deer. It is about 30 feet away in the middle of the campsite and won’t go away. It is trying to eat something next to a log. Not grazing around, but working the same spot in the dirt. It has been 5 minutes and the deer is still at it. It’s a doe for you deer hunters. My theory is that someone peed on that log and the deer is trying to get the salt. I’ll leave the deer alone because don’t they keep bears away?

Back to the avalanche chute. As you recall, the trail traverses it, but I accidentally bypassed it by climbing steeply to the peak of Disney mountain. Today, I  visited Peter Grub Ski Hut that is on the PCT. Extremely cool and remote place. A guy from the Netherlands named Weetz had stayed there the previous night. He told me that he had injured his arm in a fall yesterday and wondered whether he had to worry about infection. His forearm was wrapped from elbow to hand in gauze. I offered my Triple Antibiotic Ointment. That is when he explained that he fell trying to cross the Sugar Bowl Avalanche chute. Now, I don’t feel to bad about discouraging Rich on his hike. I had told him about this spot.

Sorry, it is hard to write with it getting dark and the deer snorting and making all kinds of racket around my tent.

Back to the story. Rich was only minutes from reaching the spot the trail crosses the avalanche chute. Rich has no Microspikes, much less an ice axe. Rich turned around without facing that danger.

Meanwhile, Weetz had no Microspikes or Ice axe either. He slipped and went hurtling down the slope. He stopped himself by using his … dang those deer … their snorts kind of startle you when you are by yourself in the dark woods…

He stopped himself by using his forearm as an ice axe, but he dragged it in the dirt when the ice ran out. He showed me a photo of his forearm that was a bloody mess. He showed me a photo of a sketch ice cornice that he had to walk out on where the trail started to cross the chute. I recognized it because I remember thinking at the time that I was glad the trail didn’t cross there, but it did cross there. One other thing, Weetz was one of the tracks I was following the 2nd day through Squaw Valley. He also met snowshoe guy and they were walking together for a while. I had to explain the word snowshoe to Weetz. His English is very good, but he didn’t know that word. What? A shoe made out of snow? Won’t it melt? Naw, he didn’t say that. I saw both the snowshoe tracks and Weetz tracks together in Squaw Valley.

It was warmer today and most of the snow had not frozen, so I couldn’t simply walk across the top with Microspikes like I was walking down a street. With every step, my foot sank and there was snow hiking. Lots of it! The good thing was that there were no treacherous slopes to worry about. The bad thing was that I couldn’t see the trail and had to use GPS a lot and wandered aimlessly through trees and huge sloped mounds of snow. 

There were at least 3 long stretches of trail that was snow covered. After finally getting out of the first and longest, I started to figure out how to navigate better using Guthook. With no worry about dangerous snow crossings, I began to relax more and have a little fun figuring out my route. Sometimes I came out of the snow exactly on top of the trail. It kind of surprised me at how accurate I had gotten. My apologies to whoever follows my aimless and lost tracks that I made before getting the hang of navigating.  They are going to be really mad at me for taking them through tangles of trees and branches and adding a lot of unnecessary walking.

One thing about walking through forest with 6 – 10 feet of snow…there are things under that snow. Things such as running water or full blown streams. There are large boulders, logs, and trees. Yes, trees. That’s right. There could be a spruce that is bent over from heavy snow and completely buried in that position, which leads to my story. 

I’m walking through the woods as usual, climbing big mounds of snow and hoping that I’m going in something like the generally correct direction. I step up to the top of a giant pile of snow when a tree pops out of the snow and slaps me in the leg. I look around and see that I am surrounded by spring loaded saplings bent to the snow and ready to punish me. Oh great! The postholing isn’t enough. Which brings me to postholing.

What qualifies as postholing? The worst that I ever experienced was I the Smokies. With every other step I would break through a  hard crust of ice and drop hard 8 – 12 inches. I then had to lift my foot vertically to free it from the crusty ice hole. I literally counted steps between rest breaks. Not every postholing is that bad. I was usually sinking only a few inches. Here are photos of my postholes where I sank to my hip. 

Here is stream posthole.

This is the trail.

Here is the Peter Grimm skin cabin.

Here is the area where I saw cross-country skiers.

Here is snow I had to walk

Here is a footbridge and creek.

Here is the trail.

Here is a pine sapling ready to spring up 

Here is my tent where deer visited

Here is road covered with  snow

S

Here I had a long snow walk.

At mile 1157.4. Hiked 16.6 miles today.

More of the same with snow. My thought was to get to Donner Pass where I would eat lunch at the Ski Restaurant. Every time I thought I was out of major snow, I encountered more and had to stop to put on Microspikes. 

The scenery was incredible, but as I am now writing this It seems hard to remember. I guess I see so much that one memory replaces another. At one point I was feeling great. In the zone, laughing hysterically over the beauty and my solitude. 

I reached The backside of Sugar Bowl Ski resort and began a climb with a wicked steep avalanche chute o my right. The trail looked like it went straight up steeply  to the top of Disney mountain where there were ski lifts. When I reached the top, seeing no trail, I checked GPS. The trail had crossed under snow at the avalanche chute near the bottom. I figured out that I could  easily descend the other side of Disney and rejoin the trail past the avalanche chute. Although a calf busting steep unnecessary climb, it was a good thing since I avoided a dangerous spot. Descending, I noticed tracks of the 2 hikers I had been following. They had also chosen to bypass this dangerous spot, but I think their decision was intentional because I knew they had good trail tracking skills.

More snow walking across this ski resort. I was navigating through snow covered woods by GPS and looked up to see a man on a log. As I climbed across snow he told me that I was on the trail. His name was Rich. He had started a hike to Yosemite only 2 miles ago at Donner Pass. I told him what I knew about the conditions in the direction he was traveling. I told him about how it was okay with Microspikes and GPS and described wandering around in the snow trying to find or follow the trail. It turned out that he had neither GPS nor Microspikes. A little while later I saw Rich going my direction back to Donner Pass. He had changed his mind about this 300 plus mile hike after only 2 miles. Feeling bad, I said that I hoped I hadn’t been discouraging. He said, “No, after the snow he had already seen he was having second thoughts.” 

Here is where I was breaking down my campsite on the coldest morning yet. A frozen boot morning.

Here are views from that campsite. I was on an island in a sea of snow in the middle of Squaw Valley Ski resort.

I crossed a creek at my campsite with snow bridge.

Here is a view of snow I crossed on climb to Tinker peak. It turned out that I didn’t need to cross since trail switch backed under snow.

I had some some ridge walks after getting through snow. 

I climbed to Tinker Peak.

I came across these cornices that had large crevasses which looked ready to break off in an avalanche.  

I had to cross a wide steep  slope of snow. Steeper than photo makes it appear.

Here is a distant view of this same snow slope I crossed.

I walked  more ridge withbeautiful rock formations and views.

I reached Donner Pass where I had an early supper at the Ski Ranch. I had the pulled pork sandwich special and took quesadillas to go for a 2nd supper a time my camp about 4 miles further up the trail near the I-80 rest stop.

This is Donner Peak after leaving Ski Ranch.

I had to walk through 2 spillways in order to cross under Interstate 80. The first had 2-3 inches of running water. Wet feet right before camp. 

Here is a photo of the 2nd spillway. I had to wade through thigh deep water in the dark tunnel. Soaked feet and legs.