Mile 873 to 888.

We woke up at our lovely campsite overlooking a valley full of pine trees and sequoia. Though lovely, we were missing the snow covered mountains we had been walking through for the last 8 days. As we walked down the trail, we lamented that we must be coming to the end of the High Sierra.

We walked along a forested mountain top before we started a long descent along switchbacks that never seemed to end. I had to stop to answer Nature’s call, but caught up with the group at the bottom of the mountain. In the valley, Mono Creek was raging pretty good, but luckily there was a bridge crossing. We weren’t so lucky for the second crossing, however, and we needed to find a way across. According to our river report, there was a log 100 yards up stream. Even though we knew this, Vipr charged straight into the river while I was going up to look at the log. The rest of the group stayed with Vipr. Since the log was about 4 feet in diameter and solid, I decided to go ahead and cross it by myself. I made it across the river, but there was a large bush growing over the right side of the log just past the river bank. As I put my trekking poles in my left hand and turned sideways to maneuver around it and got ready to jump down to the ground. As i bent knees, my left foot slipped out from under me and I fell. One of the broken branches scrapped along my face and sliced into my left ear. I managed to get my right hand out and break my fall so I didn’t land on my head. When I reached up to the side of my face, my hand came away bloody.  I walked down stream to the trail, but didn’t see the girls and figured they must have gone down trail and started in that direction. I touched the side of my face again and the blood was still flowing so I stopped and got my first aid kit out. At that point, I saw movement back towards the river. Unbeknownst to me, Vipr had aborted her river crossing attempt when she went to plant her trekking pole and it completely submerged in the river. It was simply too deep to cross. I walked back down the trail and asked Fun Dip, an EMT, if she could patch me up and she kindly did. It is great to have an EMT and a nurse in the group.

We continued on and started to climb again as we headed toward Silver Pass, which was our main goal for the day. As we went up, we passed Silver Falls, which was a huge 100+ foot waterfall. It was pretty impressive.

As we neared Silver Pass, we encountered patchy snow. When we were within about 3.5 miles the snow coverage was complete.

It was a long slog with a gradual grade up to the top. The footing wasn’t great, but we made it and proceed to eat and nap up top. It was so warm that Fun Dip built a shade shelter out of her Tyvek and I used my ice axe to carve a reclining chair.

Eventually, some other hikers came past and we too started the descent down the otherside. As we descended, we got in three glissades. 
Continuing on, we loosely followed the trail down sometimes following footprints and sometimes the river. At one point, we lost the tracks that we had been following.  I spied a new set about 15 feet away. When I walked up to them, I realized they were fresh bear tracks not more then a few hours old. We were all excited, but didn’t see the actual bear.
We continued down and the slope became steep, the trees thicker, and river tributaries kept popping up. As I was leading the group down, suddenly a trap door opened up beneath me. I was no longer standing on top of the snow. Instead, it was at my waist and my left leg was wet with water running past it. I had postwholed into a one of the tributaries that was running under the snow. Vipr pulled out her phone and told me to hold still so she could take a picture, thinking I had just post holed in snow. I told her that I was half in a river and was going to get the f*ck out. Luckily, there was a fallen tree half in the hidden river that I was able to use to keep my self from getting sucked in.
We continued down and took the first campsite free of snow at the PCT junction with the trail to Cascade Valley.

We lit a fire for the second day in a row and enjoyed it’s warmth after a long day walking on snow and falling off logs and into rivers.