Day 45 – Inadvertent Swimming
Originally published on Mason Hikes the PCT 2017.
Mileage: 13. We’re at mile 802.
Today we finally got back on trail. And it’s the Fourth of July! Hooray! 🎉 🇺🇸🎇
I woke up covered in a layer of morning dew, which is a really terrible way to wake up at 5AM at 10,000 feet. Brrrrrr. I didn’t want to get up and deal with the ridiculous moisture both in my tent and outside, but our group had made a deal that whoever was the last one ready to hike had to carry the Fourth of July vodka. I wasn’t about to add more weight to my pack, so I quickly toweled off my sleeping bag and tent and started packing up.
We started the morning early with Glenn Pass, which was a fairly steep climb up straight snow, so I finally got a chance to use my crampons! They were a real game changer and allowed me to basically run up the still-frozen snow. Very nice! I don’t think I would use them in the afternoon slush, but they’re certainly nice to have in the mornings.
When we made it to the top of Glenn, we began our celebration of America. This was mostly done to educate our Swiss comrades on American customs, but it was also a good excuse to be a bit over the top and silly. We broke out the celebratory vodka for a quick sip with the other hikers up there with us while I hung all of my stuff to dry. When the quick celebration was done, it was time to glissade!
Lesson of the day: glissading is incredibly different in the morning and the afternoon. In the afternoon, everything is slush and you smooth a path down with your butt. In the morning, everything is ice. I watched two other hikers, Captain Planet and Flask, slide down on their butts, so I figured I could too. When I started sliding, I immediately had way too much speed and was essentially self-arresting for the whole descent. I managed to minorly cut my hand on the snow, but when I got down I realized that both Flask and Captain Planet were bleeding profusely from their hands, knees, and legs. Ooopsies. Too much speed, not enough slush, still pretty fun.
We glissaded a few more times to get down to the Rae Lakes, which were absolutely beautiful. Most were frozen over, but the parts that aren’t were unbelievably clear and blue. That might have to do with how cold they are, which we got to experience first-hand by wading through waist-deep water to stay on trail. I would say slightly above freezing.
We continued on the trail, though it was covered in snow in spots and we lost three members of our team for about 30 minutes, but we made it down to Arrowhead Lake to cross to the trail again. It was a really slow-moving but deep ford, so we took it slow and gradually made it across. Dodger, the last to attempt the crossing, was walking up to the ford and somehow lost her balance and in what felt like slow motion, fell sideways into the water with her pack on, fully submerging everything. Luckily it was a really easy ford and the water was barely moving, so she just walked across from in the water, but we had a lovely pack drying party for about an hour after that one. It was a good test of her waterproofing of important things!
After her pack was fully dry, we continued towards our next river crossing, Baxter Creek. On the way, we had to traverse across some snow on a steep slope next to a lake, which everyone made it through until the very end, when Dodger lost her balance and started sliding towards the lake. Luckily, there was a tree to grab onto and a tree well to fall into, but she ended up hanging upside down next to the lake. That was a close one.
Where Dodger almost went swimming… again.
Continuing onwards, Baxter Creek was no problem, but Flame and I strung up a rope anyway to help people across. Hach-P, Savage, Dodger, Marla, and Mr. Gopher (JMT hikers) decided to link arms and try a team crossing, but it actually made it harder and did more harm than good.
At this point, we were making good time, got to walk over a cool suspension bridge, and were loving the snow-free scenery, but then we got to White Fork. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon, so snow melt was pretty high, which meant that the river was super intimidating. The crossing itself wasn’t bad, but the consequences of a fall were very very scary. Falling at the trail crossing would take you down a few rapids and waterfalls and dump you into the raging water deathtrap that is Woods Creek. We had been hiking along Woods Creek for a few miles, so we were intimately familiar with the various ways that it would quickly kill you if you fell in. No bueno.
Flame and I had scouted upstream crossings for a while, but it was all deep rapids and waterfalls, so the trail crossing was the safest that we found. Flame tied the rope to a tree and his pack and carefully walked across, managing to cross safely and tie off the rope. At this point Savage went over, I went over, and Hach-P went over, but Marla, Mr. Gopher, and Dodger were a bit more nervous.
Marla and Dodger eventually went without their packs because Hach-P and I offered to take them, and things seemed like they were going well. Marla was across and Dodger was on her way, but she seemed to be having trouble. Flame jumped out onto the rope to help, and she finally made it across, but as Flame was coming back to shore, he lost his balance and started falling over the first waterfall backwards. Ahhhh! 😱 Not good! Luckily, he kept his wits about him and kept holding onto the rope as he fell onto his back into the water, which I immediately used to yank him back to his feet and grab him before he got swept away. Whew. Crisis averted, but still a tense moment.
I went back to get Marla’s pack, which was tiny since I’m much bigger than her, but it didn’t weigh too much and I felt comfortable carrying it. I grabbed the rope and started walking across, making it about 4/5 of the way before I needed to duck under the rope to get out of the river using an easy exit. I got slightly hung up on the rope with something on the pack and lost my balance slightly, but falling upstream and putting my hand down on the bottom stabilized me enough to make it across. Double whew! 😅 Everyone was safe and sound on the other side, having successfully crossed our toughest river to date!
But not everything was awesome. It turns out that when I was ducking under the rope with Marla’s pack, the thing that had caught on the rope was her ice axe, which was not secured well and was flung by the rope into the rapids below. 😞 She was now without an ice axe in some of the most difficult and snowy terrain of the PCT, which is not a good situation to be in. I offered her my ice axe to borrow until she was done with the JMT since I’m traveling with such a big team, but she eventually decided that she would head into Bishop to get a new one. 😕 I feel really bad, but she and her hiking partner both said that they knew it was not secure she had just forgotten to fix it today.
Despite losing an ice axe, our group was in high spirits when we got into camp and all hung around Flame’s fire to celebrate America until it got dark.
We had a difficult and long day, but we learned a lot and accomplished everything that we set out to do, so I think we’re doing really well right now. Only a few more days to VVR and Mono Hot Springs!