Week 9

 This one will be a little different.  Darrell began his hike from Kennedy Meadows to Reds Meadow near Mammoth Lakes.  He had planned for a 14-day hike and had packed 15 days of food.  He was anticipating this as being the most beautiful section of the entire PCT, passing by Mount Whitney (the highest peak in the continental US),  and traversing many mountain passes, including Forester Pass which is the highest pass on the entire trail.  Since this was what is considered a light snow year, he was hoping the snow levels would be less strenuous.  Because this was the first passage without cell phone coverage along the way, we had no phone conversations but were able to communicate only via text through his satellite GPS gadget.  I'm sharing with you some of our communications as he progressed.  I hope you will get the sense of what he was feeling and what I was experiencing as I received them.  Please pardon the mushy parts and all our typos.  Please enjoy the beautiful pictures toward the end of this post.

I dropped him off on Monday, May 9, at Kennedy Meadows around noon.

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The rangers ask for permits and date stamp them because they only have 35 days to get through a 350-mile section of the Sierras.  They also check to make sure they are carrying bear canisters.  I'm glad he got to see a bear, but it made for an extremely long day since he started his hike at noon instead of the morning.

This really got to me.  You wouldn't expect something like this to happen.  

Glissading is a way of going down a snowy peak.  It is a controlled slide on your feet or rear end.  It is meant to be a faster way down the slope than walking through the snow.  I'm not sure how that worked out for Darrell, though.

Postholing is when the snow is so soft and deep that your foot and legs sink down into the snow.  At one point he was sinking down to where his crotch was in the snow.

And this is where he asked me to meet him at the small town of Independence. He had come to the conclusion that his pace was so slow and the snowy terrain so grueling that he would not make it through the high Sierras in these conditions without running out of food and running down his body.  

He decided to come home and plan out an alternate strategy for finishing his hike.  He will be postponing completion of this section of the hike.  This week he will be skipping up to further north in California where there is little to no snow accumulation now and hiking up to just below Crater Lake.  He will then come down and finish the section he is bypassing when the snow has hopefully melted then returning to where he leaves off below Crater Lake and continuing northward to Canada.  This was a hard decision for him to make, but it was a wise one considering safety and stamina and realistic expectations of his 66-year-old body.  Because of his constant struggle and fatigue, he wasn't enjoying what, in his eyes, should have been the most breathtaking and rewarding landscape.  By coming back in more favorable conditions, he will get to experience the majesty and beauty like he had hoped he would.  We are proud of him for finding an alternate way to achieve his goal of completing the PCT in one continuous journey by October to raise funds for clean water projects around the world. 

Pictures (in no logical order and mostly unidentified!)

Ice around a rock in the creek.

The following pictures are of the trail and surroundings before he reaches the Sierras.  

It must be cold if he is hiking with his jacket on!

You can see the snowy mountains getting closer.

Looking back as he begins his ascent up into the high country.

Yup, he's arrived to the much anticipated snowy range.  You'll notice it's all above timberline.

No matter how exhausted and discouraged, still a smile!

And, we certainly don't want to forget the reason for this torturous journey.  Please consider donating to World Vision for clean water projects around the world.  Every dollar donated on his fundraising page encourages him so much and reminds him to continue to put one foot in front of the other to achieve his goal.  Please use this link:  

https://www.teamworldvision.org/participant/pctwaterboy