9/23/2023
Section: Milepost 802.7 to 789.7
Total Trail Miles: 2147.5
Distance: 20.98 Miles
Moving Time: 10:16 hrs
Elevation Gain: 5210 ft
Today is the day! We are completing a great line we broke 75 days ago and have been heading back south to complete ever since. Once we finish at the turn-off for Kearsarge, we will have completed both California and Oregon and be ready for the final section - our home state of Washington.
Like our sprint to Red’s Meadow a week ago, we skimped hard on sleep last night and woke at 3. This time, it’s not quite as critical to get out early. We don’t have a shuttle waiting and are planning to hitch from the Onion Valley down to Independence, but we figured that there would be more hitching opportunities if we arrived before sundown so the goal was to get to the trailhead by 4-5 pm.
We woke in cold conditions and I was super happy for my puffy pants. These things are the shit. We snacked on a few trail bars and did our warm-ups in the darkness of early morning. The stars were bright and bountiful above our heads and we delayed starting a few minutes just to enjoy them. As someone who came into this with a lot of backpacking experience, these are the things that get cut just a touch short on the PCT - the moments in between eating and sleeping, just enjoying the setting. There isn’t a whole lot of time for that, but the compensating factor is that you are steeped in the wild for 6 months so you do get your fill.
The stage today starts with a 1.7 mile descent to the junction of Woods Creek and one of it’s tributaries - South Fork Woods Creek. The trail here turns east and crosses Woods Creek where it then turns uphill and ascends into the South Fork Woods Creek drainage. At the top of the drainage, 6 miles in, the trail winds between Dollar and Arrowhead lakes and enters another hanging valley. The grade lessens here as the trail moves up above Lower and Middle Rae lakes and then drops down to cross east-to-west between Middle and Upper Rae Lakes. After leaving the Rae Chain of Lakes behind, a final climb begins in earnest up to Glen Pass on a stark approach path that weaves between another string of tiny lakes. The trail tops out at just below 12,000 feet on a stark ridge that is Glen Pass before descending some very tight switchbacks down the south side, past a small lake. The trail continues a steep descent down the southwest flanks of Mt. Rixford into the Charlotte Lake basin. Here, the stage turns off the PCT and heads east, towards Kearsarge pass, rising past Bullfrog lake and eventually cresting at 11,800 feet over another ridgeline. The Kearsarge Pass Trail then drops precipitously down the flanks of Mount Gould, past a seemingly endless string of quintessential Sierra alpine lakes - Big Pothole, Heart, Flower and Gilbert, eventually dropping below treeline and into a small drainage which delivers hikers to the Onion Valley Parking Lot and where the stage ends.
We cruised downhill alongside Woods Creek in the early morning darkness. The avalanche damage here is catastrophic. At one point we left the trail behind, staying high above the PCT and in the treeline to avoid the mass of devastation that slowed us on the trail. It must have been armageddon in here during the early spring. There is evidence of massive avalanches all along this drainage. We eventually rejoined the trail and the avy damage seemed to subside.
At the turn-off for Woods Creek trail the PCT turned east. We followed and crossed at one of the spots that was giving us the most consternation back in July. Here, a bridge that was out made for a truly harrowing creek crossing of Woods creek at a time when it was probably 5-6 times bigger than it is now. As it currently was, the crossing was simple and we didn’t even get our shoes wet. After turning east, we started to climb up through the South Fork Woods Creek drainage. In the distance, a beautiful spire rose in the skyline - Fin Dome. “That looks like South Early Winter Spire,” I said to Amanda, referencing a gorgeous dome along the North Cascades Pass highway in Washington. She nodded her head and agreed that it did.
Another hour of hiking brought us to Rae Lakes. These lakes had been of considerable concern for us in mid-July when we were contemplating continuing north of Kearsarge. At the time, we were planning to purchase the rest of Wildfire’s food - whatever he could spare - and push on to MTR through the snow. One of the things that turned us off at Kearsarge was a report indicating that the section of trail that ran between the upper and middle Rae lake was under 5-10 feet of water and snow. What people were doing to get around this was literally “swimming” the lake to get across because there was no distinction between upper and middle Rae lake during the rapid snowmelt of July, or crossing high on the banks above the lake which are very steep. Now, the walk along Rae Lakes was among one of the most scenic sections of the Sierra highlight reel that was the past 5 days and it was effortless.
We wound above Middle Rae Lake and then dropped down to cross between Middle and Upper Rae lake. This brought us to the bottom of what would be our final push up to the final pass of the PCT. Yea, we still had Kearsarge but we had already done that one. Glen was the final highpoint of California for us and we were both excited to get it done. We started the assault on Glen and I found myself short of breath, which was funny because we had been around the 10K foot mark for weeks now but I think we are really running short on energy reserves and it manifests itself in funny ways.
We wound our way through the bare landscape, reminding me of the Morder set from Lord of the Rings, slowly climbing. The couple with the ultralight fishing rod that we had been hopscotching a bit with passed us and asked, incredulously, “what time did you get up this morning?” I felt like they left off the second part of the question which was probably something like “in order to get by us?” I swear, the undercurrent of narcissism in some people on this trail drives me crazy. Yea, we aren’t the fastest out here but there are so many ways to enjoy this trail - speed isn’t the only value.
We reached the top of Glen Pass at 11:15 am. The pass itself is not the prettiest, but the views as with therm all, were incredible. We stopped to snack, chat and take pictures. The approach on both sides suggest that Glen would have been the most terrifying of them all in the snow pack. The north side might not have been too bad, but the south side looks like it would have supported a healthy amount of exposure.
After about 30 minutes on top we began to wind our way down some very tight and heavily degraded switchbacks, making our way down towards Charlotte Lake. In the distance, a very pretty dome came into view, similar to Fin Dome, called Charlotte Dome. We continued on down past the lake and finally got some views back into where we came out in July. It was surreal to look back up into Vidette and Bubb’s river valleies, where we had fought through avy carnage and monster creeks over 2 months before. As we approached that memorable turn-off, I recorded a long video for Wildfire to commemorate our fateful decision to turn-off at Kearsarge. And just like that, we rounded a corner, nearly tripped over the plucky little sign for Bullfrog Lake and completed a line that we had been working back towards for 2 months. We stopped there and sat down to remember what we had done, take on some much needed calories and shoot a few pictures. California was done. Oregon was done. All that was left was Washington.
Eventually we got up and could hear the soft bed at the Basecamp hotel calling from Independence, which got us moving up towards the final headwall of California. We climbed past Bullfrog lake on a clean and clear trail with the beautiful Kearsarge pinnacles in the background. Past Bullfrog Lake, at Kearsarge Lake, the trail increased steeply on a final approach to Kearsarge pass. We arrived on the pass around 3 pm to a crowd of day trippers that had come up from Onion Valley. On the last switchback, we ran into one of the backcountry rangers from Kings Canyon and she and her companion congratulated us when they found out we had just finished California. She did not ask us for our permit but her friend gave us koodos for finishing with “conventional” backpacks. This prompted the ranger to tell us a few stories from July when more than a few ultralighters got into some bad situations in the Sierra during bad weather throughout June and July. A lot of single season hikers were not prepared for it, especially when there was still hundreds of inches of snow on the ground.
We took a few pictures from the top of Kearsarge and cruised down to the Onion Valley campground. As we descended we ran into a couple coming down who asked about where we were coming from. We explained that we were PCT hikers and they eventually asked where we were staying that night. “Independance,” I said, “just not sure how we are going to get there - hoping we can hitch down this afternoon.” They said that if we had not found someone by the time they got down they would take us. We thanked them and carried on. We arrived back at the parking lot around 4. This time, unfortunately, Wildfire’s wife was not waiting with snacks and beer, but we rejoiced in finally getting out and finishing California.
We tried to hitch for about 30 minutes without luck before the couple came down and gave us a ride. They were from Kansas City and were out in the Sierra camping and fishing. Really nice couple. They dumped us out at the Mt. Williamson Motel and Basecamp. I tried to give them a few bucks but they refused. We said goodby and they headed off north. Once in our room, we did all of our classic things. We cleaned off a good 5 days of grime and organized our things, threw out our trash and got stuff put in good order. Afterwards we walked down the one street in Independence and found ourselves at Still Life Cafe. We went in and ordered dinner. It was only one woman making food in the back so it was a little slow, but we weren’t in a hurry. We talked with a JMT hiker while we waited and eventually got our food and cleaned house! Afterwards we walked back through a much drier and hotter Independence. The Owen’s Valley is a special place, sitting in the massive shadow of the Sierra Crest and we took a few moments to revel in it and what we had just achieved. Back at the hotel room we took off our shoes and got in a wonderfully comfortable bed. The room was a little too hot but it didn’t matter as we quickly gave in to a blissful sleep, content with having finished two of the three states on the PCT.
