The snowy Sierras ! Kennedy Meadows to Red's Meadow. Total mileage 907 miles

Ooh la laa the Sierras!

Kristen and I are currently in Kristen's parent's place in Bend, Oregon. Today is August 28th and we have been hiking the trail for 4 months now. I know we've done a crappy job with updating our blog but believe me it has been a roller coaster ride since we left southern Kennedy Meadows in late June. Everyone who hiked through the Sierras this year know what we're talking about, experienced hikers are telling us that it was probably the most challenging year to go through the Sierras at the time of the year we did it. We are proud to say we did it and did not skip any part of the trail.

Our resupply package didn't arrive to Kennedy Meadows after 2 days of waiting and so we decided to hike the next 50 miles to the town of Lone Pine. Once we got to the hostel in Lone Pine our resupply package was there waiting for us! The box arrived to Kennedy Meadows a day after we left and a trail angel named Monty drove it all the way to Lone Pine for us. That box was no doubt the most important resupply box, it had all our gear for the High Sierra: Bear canister, ice axes and Yak Trax to keep us from sliding down the mountains. Thank you so much Monty! We decided to zero for the day in Lone Pine because it was my 16th birthday. We met the nicest couple, Roberta and Jim, at Alabama Hills Cafe and just started chatting. After getting all our errands done, we invited them to join us for dinner. We really enjoyed their stories about living off the land in Colorado and had both of us drooling. We really decided to splurge and get steaks, wine, and cheesecake and this amazing couple picked up the bill! Thank you both so very much for the food, the fun talks, and the ride back to trail. You are the reason we made it through the Sierras and didn't waste away! :)

The next day we climbed back to the Sierras and in couple of days got almost to the base of Mt Whitney. Mt Whitney is a 14 505 feet tall mountain 8 miles off the trail. A lot of the hikers summit it for various reasons, one of the reasons is " because after walking almost 800 miles we are fit to do something like that and not die at the top". We started climbing to the top around 7 am and got to the top around 10.30 am. Climbing went well, although I have to say getting closer to the top the air was getting thin and making climbing slower. At the top I enjoyed a cigar and Kristen partied with a Snickers bar. What a feast!

The next day was not any easier, we climbed over Forester Pass which is the tallest point on the PCT, 13 000 something feet. By this point we had started to hit the snow pretty bad, finding the trail started being more and more challenging. My Suunto Vector watch has a altimeter that we used a lot to make make a referrence to the map. That proved out to be an excellent way to make sure that we were on the right spot on the topo map. Route finding in the Sierras was pretty simple after getting to know how that areaa worked, you go over the pass, down to the valley and then repeat that same thing the next day. The scenery in the Sierras were majestic and beautiful but oh boy were the days hard. Drudging through snow day after day got us into the shape we are in now but after each day we were exhausted.

The river crossings were okay except a few one were the water got over our waist and fighting the current started to more and more difficult. But looking back at those crossings, they were nothing like we would hit in the Yosemite. I'll let Kristen tell you more about those, she's got a bigger variety of words meaning bad and dangerous. We were warned about that hiking in the Sierras might turn out to be impossible due to the amount of snow it had dumped there that winter and spring. We were fine the whole way but I would say that some days out there were intense and they proved out to be too much for some of the hikers. A lot of the hikers skipped or flipped the Sierras this year, every time a hiker makes that kind of decision it is due to a personal experience and it is not an easy decision.

One day around 4 pm were getting close to a pass that we decided to try and go over. All of a sudden our Suunto watches started peeping like crazy, the barometers were warning us about a drastic change in the air pressure. We decided to camp and see what was coming and after 45 minutes it started snowing on us and we could see that it was dumping snow heavily on top of the pass were planning to go over. That would have been a bad thing to be over there that time.

The Sierras were definetely one of our favorite parts of the trail and it would be fun to see it some other year when there is less snow and we could actually see the lakes and all the wild flowers. After the Sierras our bodies felt like we just ate steroids, I've played football all my life and trained really hard when younger but I've never been in this kind of shape. It is amazing what a human body can do.






























This stellar HD video was shot using a NOKIA N8 cellphone



This stellar HD video was shot using a NOKIA N8 cellphone



This stellar HD video was shot using a NOKIA N8 cellphone



This stellar HD video was shot using a NOKIA N8 cellphone



This stellar HD video was shot using a NOKIA N8 cellphone



This stellar HD video was shot using a NOKIA N8 cellphone



This stellar HD video was shot using a NOKIA N8 cellphone