High Sierras? psh

Day 75

Ever since the start of the trail we've been told how crazy the Sierra Nevadas would be because of the crazy snow. Yes, indeed there was a lot of snow, and yes it slowed us down. However, it wasn't never this tiring. We first thought we would have a smooth sailing 17 miles with one push, and a slight, but gradual incline. However, a smooth day this was not.

We did our first climb of the nearly right away. It was sunny and nice out, the trail was clear. As soon as we got to the top, the snow began. Nearly 90% of the trail was covered, and about 70% of that was snow, and the other 30 water. The descent took us hours, and the trail was lost frequently. Not much soon after that we were forging a raging 'creek' and continued to find an impassible river crossing, leaving us to walk a few miles up hill to find a safe spot. Once the second climb started, it was covered in snow hills. Going six feet up immediately followed by six feet down, and repeat this for hours on end. Hiker's hell.

Finally after nearly 11 hours of hiking, and finding a couple old hiker friends on the trail, we end the day... at mile marker 1,000. Today we crossed into our second thousand miles of the trail.

We will rest up and wake up early to get into town to resupply, and rest after the most difficult stretch of the trail.

Oh and just to put it into perspective, two people are missing and presumed dead from a stream overflow in the area (not PCT hikers) and one PCT hiker hasn't been seen in a few days. We are hoping he just got lost and kept missing other hikers!

--Ian