Mammoth Lakes to Lake Tahoe

After hiking so many days in the Sierra's I started to develop a love-hate relationship with it. I found myself hating the trail so many times for the past 4 weeks, but also loving it at the same time and amazed by all the beauty...

I really struggled the question whether we should keep going or not...

For making things easier we took 3 zeros at South Lake Tahoe, just to chill out and forget all the mixed emotions about the trail. 

I think it helped :)

The last stretch after leaving Mammoth Lakes took us 12 days, including 2 extra days we spent in Yosemite Valley. 

12 days was definitely our longest time without a real bed, but it also a long time for a lot of interesting experiences. 

On our first day we walked only about 12 miles, after taking a late start.

We planned to walk more than that, but the weather had different plans... Around 5 pm it started to rain, not heavily, but enough to make us stop for an hour to see where things are going... We hiked just few more miles after that, crossing so many lakes on the way I can't even remember their names...

We got up very early and found out our flip flops were eaten by a squirrel or other small animal during the night. We can still use them, but you can see the bites very clearly.  

The next day we had to complete 25 miles to get to Toulomne Meadows, our starting point to Yosemite Valley, and where we planned to buy dinner for that day.

Due to a navigation mistake we did on the way, we had to walk extra 2 more miles. At some point we realized we're never going to make it on time to buy dinner. But we decided to keep on going anyway. We can eat one of the next days dinner, we carried food for 8 days after all.

 

We crossed one of the last passes in the Sierra, on our way, which wasn't so snowy for a change.

 

About an hour before reaching the campground, we met a couple that started the JMT trail and carried too much food. After a 30 seconds chat, they gave us a Mountain House package, just because they didn't want to carry the extra weight. And there we were, set with our dinner for that night.

We arrived to the camp late but satisfied we completed about 27 miles.

The next morning we bought a nice breakfast in the store next to the campground, and started our journey to Yosemite Valley, after getting our permit to climb the Half Dome, which took about 2 hours!!!

We took a nice path that goes through a peak called Cloud Rest. And camp just to the foot of Half Dome trail head.

The next morning we started walking at 5:30 am, to make it to the top early enough, before it will get crowded. And lucky we did it... 

The climb was very steep, especially on the last part, and the last section is actually a cable climb. 

Once we stood at the beginning of the cable section it took few minutes to believe we're really going to climb this 90 degrees wall.

 

We saw people on their way up and down and it wasn't a nice thing to see, knowing we're going to be there in a few minutes...

We started as quickly as possible, giving no time for regrets... After one third of the way I was stuck for a minute, with no success to push myself up, since the mountain was very slippery and the cables didn't help very much...

It was really bad, because I started to think it might be a bad idea to go up, since we also need to go down the same way afterwards...  

I have know idea how, but just when I thought I should say to Roi I want to go down, I succeeded to push myself up. From this point on - no more regrets! Up it is until we will reach the top. And oh, it was worth it!!!

 

The views were so beautiful, even though I was thinking every second about the way down...

We spent some time on the top, and finally decided to go down, before all the crowd will be on thier way up.

We made our way down very carefully, one step at a time, facing to the mountain and not daring to look left or right. Well, it was surprisingly easier than going up. 

Once we finished the cable part I was so excited and frightened to see what we've  just been through...

We easily walked our way down and continuing to the Valley, passing so many people on their way up. It felt good to be on the opposite direction :)

  

 

We hiked our way to the valley through the Mist Trail, with beautiful falls. 

We saw hundreds of people along the way, it felt weird, after only seeing 3-8 people a day for such a long time. 

The Valley was even crowded, but we found our way to a grill house and had a perfect burger lunch!

We planned to spend the night in one of the campgrounds there, but there wasn't any available spot, so we decided to try and hitch back to Toulomne meadows.

It took us less than 5 minutes to find a ride back, with a nice old couple, which were traveling across the US for the past few weeks. The women was Jewish, and was so excited we're Israelis. She kept feeding us all the way with cookies ans snacks. 

The drive was more than 50 miles in the mountains and took forever, but everyone in the car was enjoying :)

The next day we had one last breakfast in the Toulomne meadows, and we kept going north.

Just before starting our hike we met a nice couple from LA area, that once they heard we're hiking the PCT they gave us more and more food. They were hiking about 6 miles of the trail, so we saw them on the way and also on our lunch break, where they gave us even more food. It was perfect, because Roi's appetite got bigger and bigger every day. 

We hiked around 18 miles that day, and camped in a beautiful spot.

The next day we crossed the beautiful Benson pass and another ford, that was supposed to be very deep, but wasn't...

The next day was very calm and mild, we crossed the Dorothy lake pass, and the 1000 miles mark. We carried a wine cardboard with us to celebrate the achievement.

We also finally saw the bird that makes strange voices in the forest. We heard those voices for the last few weeks and never knew where they are coming from. Mystery solved!

The day after was very short in miles, only 11 miles, but it took forever to finish it. At first there was a crazy wind that slowed us down, while walking on the ridge of the mountain, then there was snow every few steps, then endless going down.

But we made it eventually to Sonora pass, where we had to hitch to a resort to pick our resupply box with food for 4 more days.

It took us less than 5 minutes to get a ride with another great couple that were camping next to the resort. They fed us so much on the way - cookies and chips and pretty much everything they found in the car...

We got in the resort pretty early and had enough time to enjoy a shower, a dinner and a jam session with some strangers :)

The next morning we were lucky to find a ride in 0 effort, and there we were back on the trail.
We thought all the snow was behind us, but apparently we were wrong... Snow was also at 9000 feet... But wasn't so bad as on the high passes.
The trail was surprisingly beautiful, but I was so tired from going up all the time and kept complaining about it every chance I had.

 

Roi found the perfect cure for that - on the second day he gave me the music player, and after listening to music for like 5 minutes, everything suddenly felt so much better :)
In fact, things were getting better and better, until we even encountered our first black bear, right where we wanted to stop for lunch.
It was right on a tree above us. We were so excited, we couldn't stop smiling. 
 

 

On the third day another nice surprise - we saw Steady, Steve's wife on the trail. Same Steve that gave us all those treats on South California (it happened twice!). It's been more than a month since we last saw him. She told us he's waiting for her on Carson pass.
After few hours we were there, and so was he :)
He gave us so many treats, and the highlight - Subway sandwiches!!!

This pass was our stop for that day, since that was the place we planned to meet Marc and Wa the next morning.
And there's no better place to stop than this place. There's a visitor center with lots of volunteers, that part of their fun is to give food to PCT hikers. We ate so many fruits, sweets, chips that day that made Roi so happy.

The next morning we waited for Marc and Wa to come, and in the meantime other volunteers gave us more food - strawberries, cakes, cheese, cookies...
By the time Marc and Wa came we were so full :)
It was so fun seeing friends from our non-PCT life. We walked around 14 miles together, stopping on the way to drink beers and eat the delicious sandwiches Marc's wife made us and fresh fruits.
Food feast was starting indeed!
 

At night, we went to a great Irish pub with great food, and order almost half of the menu! And every dish was better than the other!!!

After a nice breakfast and a short hike we said goodbye to Marc and Wa and continued to our zero day, which ended in a Buffet place in one of the casinos in town.
We ate so much, we felt sick for the entire night...
That's a great reason for another zero... and another one...

On our last day we met with Justin (Honest Abe), that gave us a ride back from the kickoff. He lives in South Lake Tahoe, and invited us to stay at his place. Once again he was so kind to us - took us to a Ukulele night, where lots of people sit and play together, and later took us to a really fancy restaurant.
A true angel :)

Well, tomorrow we're heading back to the trail, after great 3 resting days.  

Bishop to Mammoth Lakes

To make the long story short, we just had the most demanding trail experience and the most amazing one in the same time!

We crossed 7 snowy passes in 8 days, crossed countless number of streams and rivers and walked with wet shoes 90% of the time.

The first day after coming back from Bishop was supposed to be a short day, climbed back the way we went down few days earlier... (Via Kearsarge pass) We did it faster than expected. One thing led to another and suddenly we were in the middle of the climb to Glen pass, which we planned to cross only the next day.

Going up was OK, not too hard.

We knew the real challenge is going down on the north side. And oh, it was quite a challenge... The steep way down was covered with snow.

It took us quite a while to get down, trying to jump between one rock to another and sliding on our behinds anywhere we could to make the way down faster.

It took a while but we finally made it to a safe zone... A bit more snow and streams to cross and we finished our day next to a beautiful lake.

The next morning we woke up to a tent full of ice, it took me about 30 minutes to get all of it out of the tent... The wet shoes froze as well... Fun!

The sky was clear and our way to the third pass, Pinchot pass, couldn't been prettier... 

BUT, once getting closer to the pass it was harder and harder to find the way. Everything was covered with snow, with too many post holes... :(

Exhausted we made it to the pass after endless tries to find the trail. 

Of course, the other side of the pass was full of snow :)

We could find our way to the bottom though...

Our shoes were so wet we decided to go below 10,000 feet, so we could light a campfire (you're not allowed to do it above 10,000 feet in the Sierra).

We walked few more miles until we bumped into other PCT hikers that were already camping with campfire next to them. It was our sign to stop. 

The next morning we started our way to another pass, Mather pass. 

The snow wasn't so bad along the way. We didn't lost the trail that many times :)

BUT, once getting to the last part, we could see the last switchbacks. They were steep, and they were covered with snow. I was starting to panic just from seeing other people trying to cross it. By the time we got to the snowy steep section I actually started to cry... :( 

It was scary and for couple of minutes I was frozen more than the snow itself...

Roi with the steep switchbacks behind him...

I have no idea how, but I made it to the pass eventually. And guess what was on the other side? A lot more snow!!!

Going down was steep as well, but safer... The trail was covered, so we had to figured out our own way to go down...

The snow was already soft. Every step was a nightmare. I hated the snow so much!

And then, 5 minutes before the end of the snow, Roi hurt his leg, when stepping in the snow and heating a rock.

I was so exhausted and tired, that once I so him crawling on the snow with pain, I started to cry again...

I hated this pass more than anything!!!

Roi tried to walk few steps, without any success. His leg was hurt. With a lot of pain, we made it to a campsite few miles from there. We were super slow. 

The next morning it was obvious we won't make it to the next pass, so we had a short 12 miles day.

We camped very high, next to a lake, about 3 miles from the Muir pass. From the place we camped the trail was covered with snow. After our last snow experience, I started to imagine the worst pass... Muir pass is considered the most snowy one. 

I tried to relax by taking a lot of photos of group of deers, that seemed to be following us all day.

The morning arrived very quickly. It was cold... We started walking on 7 a.m.

There was snow, BUT

It was neither scary nor steep. 

It was actually very beautiful! I enjoyed every moment! I even saw the footprints of the deers from the previous day all the way...it seemed like they crossed the pass over the night :)

By the time we reached to the pass I was so happy and excited.

Muir pass is definitely my favorite one!!!

The way down was very snowy indeed, but not steep. It was still early in the day, so the snow was still hard. The walk was easy and fun.

Few miles later we bumped into the same group of deers again. They indeed crossed the pass :)

Our next challenge was a ford crossing. Since this was a drought year in California, we weren't so worried from this crossing. And easy it was! The real challenge was fighting the mosquitoes while crossing the ford...

Roi's leg was getting better and we were so excited from that beautiful day, we decided to hike 20 miles...

On the campsite we met a family that was hiking for few days. They were so nice to treat us with some cheese, crackers and chocolate :)

The next day was a long one - 25 miles. We crossed an easy pass, Selden pass. Almost no snow... 

It was our 6th day on the trail and we were almost run out of food. We had to get to a resort called VVR, 8 miles off the trail. 
But not before crossing another ford... :)

 

We made it just on time for dinner in their restaurant. The food was great! And we even took a shower! 

For a moment I forgot about all the steep snowy passes...

Until the next day, of course.

 

From VVR we had two options: either to take a boat and go back to the PCT and cross Silver pass, or to hike on a different trail that meets the PCT few miles later, and cross a different pass, Goodale pass. The guys in the resort recommended us to go through Goodale pass. And so we did.

Going up was long and steep. But no snow. I was optimistic for a second... Until I saw the other side. 

Snow... We crossed the first snow section, thinking it's over. Walked few more minutes and realized there is no way down.

The trail was covered with snow and no footprints to follow...

We decided to go down through a rocky steep section, that looked more promising than walking on the snow.

Well, it was steep, but we made it!

Few hours later we met hikers that took the other pass, and guess what? That one was easy and not very steep :(

We made a bad decision...

But at least we warned every hiker we saw on the way (walking the other direction) not to take the pass we crossed...

We walked about 22 miles that day, thinking about the zero day that is very close.

The next day was an easy 10 miles to Red's Meadows resort where we finished our 8 days hike. It's still very early in the season, so no buses are working yet. It took us about an hour to find a ride to Mammoth Lakes town.

And here we are enjoying a zero, with good food and even a visit in the local brewery :)

BTW - I got new shoes... The last pair torn, again...