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The High Sierra

At Kennedy Meadows I had received, count 'em, seven packages. Three of them were food: from KM I went 240 miles without a resupply, and had to carry enough for 270 miles (when I departed, Tioga Road to Toulumne Meadows had just opened, and sometimes early in the season it is closed again by late-season storms, in which case I would have had to walk 30 miles to Yosemite Valley). The others were gear, since the High Sierra was going to confront me with vastly different conditions than I had been seeing to date, namely lots of snow and colder temperatures.

I took off with nine days of food, crampons, an ice axe, new shoes, a warmer sleeping bag, and some warmer articles of clothing.

Looking east into the Owens Valley, which until Los Angeles slyly (but legally) purchased most of the water rights was home to productive citrus farms, and before then to Piute Indians.

The Kern Plateau

Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the Lower 48, as seen looking up Crabtree Creek. Whitney is a worthwhile side-trip for PCT hikers, though I opted not to because I was concerned about the conditions ahead of me -- it was mid-May and there was still a lot of snow, most of it prone to frustrating, energy-sapping, progress-hindering post-holing every afternoon.

The geological origins of the Sierra Nevada range trace back to a monstrous chamber of magma that hardened underground and was uplifted and exposed through erosion of overlying layers. Glaciers and the freeze-thaw cycle has chiseled and fractured apart this once-solid mass of granite, exemplified by this boulder-strewn moraine near Mt. Whitney.

In mid-May of an average year, I would been walking on snow here. But it had been a very dry winter (about 50 percent of average snowpack around Mt. Whitney), which is the primary reason why I went clockwise instead of counter-clockwise (and hitting Colorado's San Juan's first instead).

The view south from Forester Pass, the highest point on the PCT at 13,200 feet.

At Forester Pass.

The view north from Glen Pass, the second of 9 major passes along this section of trail.

The still-frozen Rae Lakes. While temperatures were getting into the 60's everyday, the nights were still below freezing and nothing was melting out quickly, neither the ice nor the snow.

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