After an easy start White Pirate left us this morning because he had to go down to Lonepine for resupply. Pretty soon we hit the 11,000ft marker this morning and didn’t leave it until we reached our campsite. Also highest point so far with 11,500ft / 3,500m!
With the altitude we also had more snow. The north face of course more than the the others but it was noticable more than the few patches yesterday…
My new shoes are amazing! I almost have unlimited grip and only used my micro spikes once (because everyone else did…). They are really good on snow!
The views were just getting better and better. We alternated between plateaus, ridges and traverses. It is so good to be back up here!!!
We made good pace during the morning but we also had many forced breaks – because of the view.
After lunch the snow got slushy. Our pace dropped dramatically. The snow got softer and softer and also some of the snow bridges colapsed underneath us. Since we are not on glaciers not a big problem but still draining. We left the ridges and went down on a plateau again. Here all the water collected from the higher peaks again so it became very wet.
The last three hours were very slow. Due to the snow it was hard to find the trail on the flat area. We were treated with the views of the sourrounding peaks though the deeper we went again.
We decended further and the snow became less and less – therefore the water became more and more!
We had to ford a stream before we got to our campsite. In normal years probably easy but at the moment almost impossible if you don’t walk upstream for a while. Luckily someone had placed a big log close to the trail. Everett and I shuttled all backpacks across and then everybody crossed carefully. Jiehaaahhh. First adventure part 🤘🏼
