The End of Desert Section (D-33 652 - 672.8; D-34 672.8

The End of Desert Section (D-33 652 - 672.8; D-34 672.8 - 699)

The Kern Transit bus dropped me back at Walker Pass (the majority of the few passengers the bus has are hikers) by 9 am - a leisurely start - and I started hiking up a mountain. The above pic shows the Hwy 178 in the far left and the switchbacks that I had hiked up the mountain. The day was just a slog through the desert once again, with the second big climb coming in the second half - the hot half - of the day. It was a relief to reach the campsite, where a few people had already set up their stuff. But they were very welcoming and since most were cowboy camping, there was enough space for a lot of people. I also decided to cowboy camp as there was not much wind anyway.

A total of 9 people camped in the site.

Another of my creations for dinner: Ramen noodles mixed with veggie upma sprinkled with savory trail mix & cracked potato chips

Day 34 was much the same, except the climbs were a bit more gentler. The desert section of PCT was coming to an end.

This colorful snake was lazing on the trail for some time & then, it realized it was being photographed without it's consent and quickly slithered away. Wonder what this snake is?

The Sierra Nevada mountains are almost here!

And to announce the end of of the desert section, Kern River with plentiful water (so much water after so so long) shows up.

And my tent site was right next to the river, where it is a delight to soak my feet in.

Today's creation: Ramen noodles combined with sweet & savory poha garnished with potato chips & trail mix (much better tasting than the previous one 🙂)

Data:

Day 33

Day 34

Comments

In-town & Trail Activities (D-45 @ 903.3 and D-46 4.3 miles plus 906.7 - 924.5)

I am still surprised how busy in-town zero days can be. You think that you have a lot of time to take care of everything that you had planned to do while hiking earlier. Yesterday, in Mammoth Lakes, first I had a large breakfast (very important thru-hiker activity) & then visited 3 different stores to research and buy new shoes & glove liners. Old ones were completely gone. Post that, went to the big grocery store to buy the resupply food till the next stop & as usual, got overwhelmed by the number of the items available, picked up excess items, realized I can't carry all this, put back a lot of stuff and still ended up with extra food to carry. Next stop was the pharmacy to get blister-care bandages, then a decent sized pizza lunch and then back to the room to sort and repack. Speaking of blisters, I have got 2 till now and I had to prick one of them with a needle a few days back and then cover it up. First time, I had to sterilize the needle in a flame and the...

The High (& sometimes scary) Passes of Seirras - Part 1 (D-38 760 - 774.7; D-39 774.7 - 795.5)

The 7 main mountain passes (a pass being the low-point saddle between two mountains that one has to cross to go on the other side of the mountain) that I had to cross were as follows (south to north): 1. Forester Pass (13200 ft / 4023 m) 2. Glen Pass (11957 ft / 3645 m) 3. Pinchot Pass (12127 ft / 3696 m) 4. Mather Pass (12094 ft / 3686 m) 5. Muir Pass (11970 ft / 3648 m) 6. Selden Pass (10913 ft / 3326 m) 7. Silver Pass (10778 ft / 3285 m) All of these passes have some ascent and then a descent and essentially, the descent of one pass leads to the ascent of the next without too much of a flat area in between. Because this was a low snow year (some reports put it as only 43% of the average trail snow which means a bad summer drought for California 🙁), hikers like me are able to enter the Seirras and hike through these passes so early. Of course, this also means that there is still quite a bit of snow left on the passes and around them, which makes them more difficult and...

My gear and my tramily (D-97 @ 2148 - Zero day)

Some of you have asked about what gear I am using. Since today is a Zero day (the last Zero day was on D-57) and there is nothing much to report other than the fact that I shipped the last set of resupply boxes to different places in Washington state and ate substantial amounts of food today, I figured I might as well talk about my gear, and also a bit about the other most essential component on the hike - my "tramily" (trail-family). Tent : 1-person Rainbow Li from Tarptent (bought new). This has worked very well for me and as you know from my earlier posts, Tarptent has given very good customer service too. I haven't had the chance to use the tent in heavy rain or snow (luckily) though and can't comment on it. I use a Tyvek ground sheet (already owned), also from Tarptent. Backpack : Catalyst from ULA (already owned). I started with Zpack Arc Air Robic 60L (bought new) and used it for 700 miles, but it was not comfortable at...

A thru-hike attempt

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