- Daily mileage 15
- Total mileage 754
- Hours hiked from 6:00 am to 4:00 pm
Today was all about enjoying the Sierra and not pushing too hard.
The whole crew was up at a modestly early and off at around 7am. There had been much discussion about how to finish this segment of the PCT which includes summitting Mt Whitney. I am still confused! All I know is that I am going to take a day off hiking when they go off on their summitting adventure. The day involved hiking mostly between 10,000 and 11,500 feet. Surprisingly, the snow was limited to patchy sections mostly on northerly aspects. That all changed when we got to the very beautiful Chicken Spring Lake.
That is the altitude, not the time!
There were some easy, cruiser segments of trail
The oddly named Chicken Spring Lake
After we had a long break at the lake (today was filled with many impromptu trail-side breaks), we individually headed out for some more miles. And pretty much all of us lost the trail under the snow. I was off trail for about a mile, but I actually knew where it was and just side traversed my way over to it. The section of the trail that caused me the most grief was a relatively flat patch of snow that was heavily sun cupped. That means that the surface is a mixture of holes and ridges. I am here to admit that I hate sun cupped snow. I went down three times in quick succession. Nothing hurt except my pride.
Hiker vortex. One person stops for a break and pretty soon we have all stopped.
More lumpy snow sneaking into the hike
After several more unscheduled stops, 9 of us made the group decision to not go to the designated meeting point but stop three miles short instead. Unfortunately there is no way of contacting the other part of the group who are likely wondering where we are. Oh well, it is nice to be finished early.
Home for the night
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