Saturday, May 31, 2014

Kennedy Meadows to Bishop

Kennedy Meadows marks the end of South California section on the PCT and the beginning of Sierra Nevada section, that considers to be one of the most beautiful sections...
BUT, it also marks the beginning of the bears land, the hard mountain passes and long stretches without a good rest...
I was happy to leave south California behind, yet I was scared from what we were about to start.

For keeping away the bears from our food we had to (by law) to carry all the food inside a bear canister, which weights more than a KG. So, not only we carried 6 days food, we also had to carry this huge plastic can. It takes the entire space in my backpack and I can say it was hate from first sight.
 
From the moment we left Kennedy, you could tell the difference. Everything is green, water is everywhere.


 
We passed a burned forest hopefully for the last time...


I was very optimistic about water crossing after seeing bridges everywhere...

 
After couple of hours we reached our first Sierra snow. The sight was beautiful. 
 
 

We found a nice camp ground next to the snow and finished our first 23 miles in the Sierra, above 10,000 feet.


The next morning was clear and nice. We loved everything we saw...
The hike was hard though... Lots of miles, lots of climbs. We always stayed between 9,000 feet to 11,500 feet. It's not easy... You can feel your heart beats like crazy. 





On the second day we completed 24 miles and camp next to Chicken lake, alt. more than 11,000 feet.

   





On our third day we hiked towards Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain it the US (excluding Alaska) - 14,500 feet. It felt like walking in a dream. Water everywhere, animals running on the fields, big snowy mountains...
 







  
We camped next to a lake called Guitar lake, which was partially frozen, at the foot of mt Whitney.
 
 
Apparently, the real enemy here are not the bears, but the marmots... They tend to really like chewing hikers gear, everything, including trekking poles and anything that looks interesting for them...

 
 
 
The next morning we started the long climb... Snow was evertwhere, but only in small sections each time. The real challange was the ice. It was super cold early in that morning and ice was covering the trail in some sections, making it almost impossible to cross. 

I'm not sure how, but we made it finally to the peak :)
It was worth every snow and ice on the way. A dream...
 






 
By the time we went back down to our tent, the ice disappeared and the hike was better and easier. 
 
After going back to our tent (we left it behind so we won't need to carry it to the summit) and eating out lunch we kept hiking towrds our next challenge - Forester pass, the steepest ang highest (13,200 feet) pass on the PCT and also the highest point on the trail.
 
 
We camped 5 miles before it, after crossing few strong streams and getting completely wet... (No bridges here...).

 
 
We woke up to a freezing morning with a little bit of ice covering our tent.  
As we got closer to the pass we saw more and more snow. Beautiful, did I mentioned that already?


 
Once we got to the final climb, we couldn't see the trail, everything was covered in snow. So we just climbed straight up to a higher point where the trail seemed to appear again.  
The last part of the climb was easy and fast and next thing we knew, we were standing on the pass. Looking to the other side, we were amazed to find out there's a lot more snow there...

 
We started going down, walking on the snow. On the first hour it was fun, different... Then, at late noon, the snow became softer, the trail was still well hidden beneath it. We lost the trail so many times and started sinking into the snow with every step. It was hard, endless. We walked like that for more than an hour... Until the trail was seen again...
Apparently snow can be a dangerous thing. This is my new enemy now :)
 


 
We camped next to the exit point of the trail, from where we needed to hike 8 miles more to get to a road where we can hitch to a nearby town. 


Next morning was freezing. Our shoes were still wet from yesterday's snow and the streams crossings. It was a real challenge to get into the shoes...
 
 
We had to cross one more pass on the way. This time the snow wasn't so bad... But after we reached the pass we went down and down for more than 2000 feet. We will need to climb all this back in few days :(  But we should not think about this now...
 

 
It took us 2 hours to get a ride from the trailhead to the closest town, Independence. From there we hitched again to another town, bigger one, Bishop, where we are now, enjoying 2 zeros... :)
 

Tehachapi to Kennedy Meadows

After 2 resting days in Tehachapi we felt ready for our last desert section on the PCT! But were we?
In the first 4 days there were only 3 water resources, which means we need to carry a lot of water, 6 liter at a time. It was heavy! And to get fast from one water resource to another we hiked like crazy. 
 
 
We completed 27 miles on the first day. Stopped for a long break in the hot hours to avoid walking in the heat. 
Maybe an excuse to Roi and Shredder to play together :)  
 
 
On our second day we passed the 600 miles sign. It felt good for a second, but the minute the camera was back to its bag, the smiles were gone... We still had a long way ahead of us.

 
 

The scenery kept changing from extremely desert like views to small pine forests. Either way it was hot!
I was thinking about the book I read just before we started hiking the PCT, 'Wild'. Her PCT experience started just here, in this awful section. What a miserable way to start...  

 
After hiking about 23 miles on the second day, we bumped into a nice surprise - a water cache! Happy and relax we decided to hike only one more mile for that day. 

On our third day the wind decided to give us an extra challenge, as if we weren't tired enough... It was the strongest wind we experienced so far on the PCT and maybe our entire life. I literally flew off the trail few times!!!
My conclusion from that day was:
ascending + deep sand + strong wind in the opposite direction + a very heavy backpack = the worst combination ever.
Oh, I don't want to do it ever again.
 

And here it was again - a water cache along the way. We were happy and frustrated at the same time to see that. We didn't have to carry those 6 liters, if we knew we would find water here :(

 
The water cache was just before starting the last climb for that day. We didn't think it was possible, but the wind got worse!!! Now it was really scary, since the climb was quite steep and the trail was narrow most of the way. I stick my trekking poles so hard in the ground, hoping it will protect me from flying off the trail again. Wind can be an evil thing sometimes. 
When we finally got to the top we were so exhausted we ate like crazy. By the time we got to our camp site for that night Roi got a fever... I guess the wind won! It was the first time I saw Roi really suffering on the trail.

Luckily our next day was very short one, mostly descending, clear sky and no winds. 
 

Very quickly we arrived to walker pass, where we hitched to a town called Lake Isabella (more than 30 miles off the trail).


A good rest, zero day and a lot of food did their magic. Roi was happy and strong again :)

 
 

On our second and last night in the motel the owners made a big dinner for all the hikers that stayed there. It was already my birthday, according to Israel time zone. A nice way to start the celebration. 


The weather was bad that day. Very cloudy, cold and rainy. We were so glad to be off the trail...

The next morning we hitched back to the trail. It was still cloudy, dark and cold, but by the time we got back to walker pass it looked better. 

 
But few hours later it went dark and cloudy again... We tried to be optimists... For a while... After all, it was my birthday...


Birthday or not, 1 hour later a rain storm started. We made it almost in time to open our ground sheet, put it on a tree and hide from the rain under it.
We sat there for about an hour, waiting for the storm to pass.
After 20 minutes without rain we finally decided to move on.
We walked about 10 minutes before we found ourselves in the middle of another rain storm, this time without any chance to get a shelter...
So we got wet, and wet and wet. Until we were soaked from head to toe.
Absolutely the best birthday ever :(
 
Few hours later the rain stopped and we found a nice place to camp. All our cloths and shoes were wet. But at least our sleeping bags stayed dry. It can always be worse...
 
The next morning we had hard time to get into the wet and cold cloths and shoes... But the weather got better... 
At some point it got cloudy again and we saw the rain coming again. We sat up our tent quickly and waited inside until it was safe again... Not taking anymore chances from now on. We learned our lesson...
The rest of the day was beautiful and we could see the first mountains of the Sierra.  



Our last day was pretty short and easy walk to Kennedy Meadows, the starting point of the Sierra Nevada.