Nicholas Tierney - PCT Day 57: Kearsage Pass (mile 782

Date: 2023-07-01
Pct day: 57
Start: Mile 782
End: Mile 784+
Distance: 8 miles
Ascent: 2316 feet
Descent: 2765 feet
Start name: Videttes meadow
End name: Onion Rd Carpark
Wake up: 03:00
Start hiking: 03:40
At camp: 11:00
In bed: ???
Where I slept: tent
Shower: no
Best thing: Gorgeous passes, snow, mountains. Resting at Kearsage pass. A feeling of relief. The warmth and comfort of a town. Fresh food. Other hikers.
Worst thing: Such a beautiful place. One of the most beautiful places, but bone-deep feeling of tiredness, all you want to do is escape, and get out of this stunning place.

Key moments

Woke up early - 3am. Still pitch black.
Immediately had to do 3 stream crossings - we knew we were supposed to do 1 crossing straight after camp.
But what we didn’t know was that the crossing we did weren’t even on the map. They were just swollen tributaries (creeks). They were involved, ankle, shin height. Incredibly cold - I couldn’t feel my toes.
The actual marked crossing was straightforward compared to the rest of the creeks we crossed.
I had to do a quick emergency meeting (bush poo) as we started our club up to Bullfrog lake. When you gotta go, you gotta go.
We had a gorgeous moment hanging around at Bullfrog lake, watching the sun touch the top of the surrounding mountains. It’s a strange moment, staring out at something so stunning but all you want to do is get out of there.
The hike was relatively straightforward. There was some solidly frozen bootpack. Walking on the frozen snow is much faster going.
I remember seeing bootpack of some vivo barefoot shoes. Someone was bold here.
It’s funny how you start to recognise people’s shoes from their tracks. I could pick topos, Altras, Hoka, vivobarefoot. The things you pick up on trail.
It felt steep, but we could at least see where we had to head to, and we knew that once we got up to kearsage pass, it would be all downhill. And we’d get less snow.
Making it to Kearsage pass we all had a nice pause. A nice moment to share. Relief.
And man, was it stunning. That was a nice moment. We were all smiling, looking back at where we’d come from.
Grateful nothing terrible had happened.
We met a ranger, she was really lovely. There was a strange thing we were noticing - all the female rangers looked like they were models in their other job. She gave us some starbursts. We chatted about the stream crossings ahead of here. It didn’t sound good. Like, at all. Like chest deep fast water. She was happy we were heading out. She didn’t seem terribly optimistic about future crossings from here, but said that people were managing to do them, so the conditions were likely rapidly changing.
The hike down felt like floating. We came across other people heading up on a weekend.
I felt proud to be doing the sierras. We stank. We looked like hell. But man, it felt a bit like being a celebrity - people asking us if we were doing the PCT, there had been so few people.
We had a text from a friend giving us the number of a dude who could give us a lift out from the car park here at Onion rd.
We all moved pretty quick downhill. My backpack felt so much lighter. My heart felt lighter too.
The snow was getting really slippy and wet. But it didn’t matter. We were heading out.
A smile started etching its way into my face. I don’t think this was going to wipe off for a while.
A sense of calmness, relief, pride, sadness. The ringing pure sound of Mt Whitney returning into my head and my heart, mixed with the gritty pain of my feet, and other random aches on my body. The feeling of a thru hike, an adventure.
We made it down to the car park and cheered each other on.
We did it. We survived.
We met some other PCT hikers who started to hike up to kearsage pass. They started, then turned back. The snow was so terrible, they remembered what it was like when they came in and didn’t want to go through that all again.
We chatted to some locals at the car park. I had a chat to some indian folks about the cricket. Felt nice to talk about cricket.
Half the group managed to snag a ride with another person leaving the car park. People were keen to help PCT hikers there, which was really nice.
Granite man Tom, Owl (Franck), and I waited for Tom’s son to pick us up. I cancelled our other potential ride from our friend - he said he got delayed and hadn’t been able to leave town yet, which was good, we didn’t want him to have had started driving.
Tom’s son picked us up, and handed us a cold gatorade. What a dude.
He drove us to a local BBQ place. I had a significant sandwich. I can’t remember what was on it, only that it barely touched the sides going down.
We got dropped off at a hostel in Bishop, a really cool mountainside town. We stayed at The Hostel California (abbreviated THC).
THC is a key chemical compound in Cannabis, so there was a lot of cannabis theme throughout the hostel. The managers had a few plants they were taking very good care of. They spent a lot of time smoking in the courtyard. They were fun!
This hostel was so cool. Heaps of old climbing gear hung up on the walls. A TV room with a wall of old VHS and DVDs. Shrek was playing every day.
And hikers! Alex, Harry, and Snacks were there. And a bunch of other hikers I hadn’t met.
It was nice to see PCT folks around.
There was a hiker box with spare clothes. We all got rooms, and washed our stuff at the laundromat. It felt nice to wear non hiking clothes. We got frozen yoghurt. We had dinner.
We debriefed extensively.
I said I was out. I was going to take at least 3 zero days here. I was going to stay with my friend Allison and have a good long hard think about how I’m going to approach this next part of the trail.
It felt nice to bow out of the group. I didn’t feel like I needed to stress about the upcoming next section.
Instead I got to reflect and process the trauma of the past week. The frustrations of group dynamics, bad stream crossings, log crossings, crossing failing snow bridges.
I got to call Katie and tell her I was alive, and hear her voice. Being away is hard. Katie would have known what to do in this situation.

Plan from here

Take a few days off. Relax. Not hike.

Animals sighted

Deer, Marmots.

Gear thoughts

Need new shoes. Mine had stated to fall apart.

Physical condition

Feet hurt everywhere.
Feet have small holes in them under the ball of the foot, where the gravel ground a hold in them.

Thoughts and Observations

It was nice to see other hikers.
I was tired.
So. Tired. But I couldn’t sleep.
It was really nice to Alex and Harry and co. They are great folks. I wish I could have hiked more with them.

Some of the bad things