Nicholas Tierney - PCT Day 50: Entering the Sierras

Date: 2023-06-24
Pct day: 50
Start: Mile 703
End: Mile 720
Distance: 17 miles
Ascent: 3017 feet
Descent: 1069 feet
Start name: Kennedy Meadows South
End name: Cow Creek and Tentsite
Wake up: 0530
Start hiking: 1230
At camp: 20:00
In bed: 21:15
Where I slept: tent
Shower: no
Best thing: entering the Sierras
Worst thing: mosquitoes and negative vortex time

Key moments

woke up and packed up my stuff - it always feels a bit strange packing up hiking gear at a more official campsite / town-type place
Packing up the winter kit - my -12C bag and a couple of other small bits of gear, takes a bit longer at the moment as I’m still trying to work out where everything goes, and in an ideal world I would have a bag that was a bit bigger, but here we are.
Sorted out an insurance detail for the sierras - one of those things in life where you read and deliberate and then a 5 minute phone call has it solved
It was all a bit of chaos, I think so many hikers have been feeling the same. Resupplying and buying new gear is always a bit stressful and for many of us this is the first time we’ve done a large, 9 day food carry. I did one in Tasmania back in 2019, but I wasn’t carrying a bunch of winter stuff like ice axes and crampons and yeah, I think I’ve packed too much food…we will see.
Thought I lost my trekking poles for a moment after I packed my bag - first time that’s happened
This happened right as our shuttle was due to leave so that bit of stress really added to it all
We made it to the shuttle and I found my hiking poles. Cukes, Owl, and I were quite relieved to get to the trail
It felt SO good to be on the trail, the anxiety of the town funk and resupply slowly melted away as we climbed higher into more verdant hills.
Cukes got a bit further ahead of us and a few hours later we came across some hikers heading the other direction and they had a note from Cukes with her Inreach phone details, so we could communicate with each other while we are out in the sierras. Smart!
This was a funny moment because these hikers saw us and said, “Are you ‘friend’ and ‘Owl’ ? This is for you”. My first trail name mention in a note!
The desert was green this year from the rain, and it was beautiful in its own way, but there is something just so goddamn magical about hiking yourself from the Sandy desert into a piney forest and seeing snowy mountains in the distance.
The fear and concern of the mountains ahead all continued to melt away as we realised we were all here and we made it and it was exciting.
Owl and I busted out 17 miles from 1230 until 8, felt great. No snow travel yet, but this reminded me that when we get to less snowy ground, say in Northern California, we should be easily do 25 mile days
It was really special to hike with Owl, he and I met on the first day of the PCT and have seen each other in towns over the course of our hike but haven’t really hiked with each other yet. And here we are, tackling the coolest section yet.
Saw a black bear running away into the woods. It must have been some trick of the sound of a nearby stream but I couldn’t hear it move and man did it move fast.
We got to camp 3 miles from our friends and decided it would be good to camp earlier while it was still light out .