Today was a long but good day. We only left at 10am since we were afraid of the snow being to icy on the upcoming Fuller’s Ridge.
The trail continued through nice forest and some snow patches.
I only took 1l of water since I was sure to find water on the ridge. Fuller’s Ridge has been quite a topic since it apparently has a few very steep parts and since there is a lot of snow it can become dangerous once you slip. So the discussion went back and forth whether to take spikes, crampons or nothing.
After going over the ridge you can clearly say a few things:
It’s a beautiful ridge with an awesome trail and great views!
The hype made around it is (how the guy from Paradise Cafe would call it): Bullshit!
The sketchier parts were definitely before the ridge itself in the forest.
There are only a handful of snow patches left which are easy to cross and even if you slide you’ll end up in a tree and not in the valley…
I’ll let the pictures speak today since I am to tired and it’s already late – 40 minutes past “hikers midnight”; 9pm.
Since there was no snow there was also no water. All of the marked streams we passed were dry. I had about a third of a litre left. We were a bit short of the last possible water source before the valley which was still about 14 miles down. When we got close to it we found a note on the trail which said the creek was dry. No good news! From here still 12 miles without water – that’s at least four hours and I was already a bit dehydrated. Long story short, the creek still carried water and we were luckily able to camel and fill up.
We also passed the 200 miles marker today!
4 hours and an uncountable amount of (unnecessary) switchbacks later we arrived at the water source in the dark. Dinner, hydration and bed. Almost 20 miles again and 7,000 feet of downhill. Over and out!
