Day 81 - 86, Mile 788 - 906

(we made a mistake somewhere in the days. It took us over 10 days to get through this section, not 5. But we've been out here 86 days.)

Epic....

That's really all I can say about these last days. This last part took much longer than expected as we whittled down to 10 miles a day. One reason was the difficulty of the terrian and the other was I had no desire to rush it. I sort'be understand the other PCTers need to run through it in a week, but that's not for us. The Sierras are far to majestic to blow through them. Listening carefully to the sounds of the forest, keeping out an eye for wildlife, talking with people and taking tons of pictures is our style. 

As to wildlife, we've seen a bunch. An interesting detail about National parks is that due to fact that hunting is banned, prey animals are not only not afraid of us but seem to proposly linger around our campsites for saftey. My theory is that they feel safer near us as predators stay well away from humans (the top predator). A good example was a time we were taking a long lunch break. We saw a dear grazing in front of us and thought nothing of it until it started 'baaaaaing' like a sheep. So we hushed up to listen to it. She walked right up to us , turned left on the trail and behind her came a fawn the size of a cat! It was as if she was teaching her baby that humans mean safety. You would never see this in BLM or common forest lands. It was a really special moment for the both of us and we'll treasure it forever.  Along with deer, we've seen bear, fox, coyote, flightless birds and every rodent and insect out here. Last on the list to see would be a mountain lion or bobcat but unfortunately, they stay well away from humans ( which is why we see so much deer).

Besides looking at waterfalls, meadows and animals, most of the time we are hiking.Everyday we had the same plan. Climb up a pass, climb down to the often mosquito invested valley, cross a river and camp at the base of the next pass and do it again the next day. Others did two passes in a day, we did one. Each pass was between 11000 -  13000 ft and each valley was 8000 - 9000 ft, so everyday had big climbs and descents. Also every pass had snow fields covering the trail adding to the difficulty with Muir pass having the most with at least 4 miles of continuous snow hiking. But for the all the hard work, the rewards were well worth it.

Sam posted a lot of pics, so I'm saving time and internet and won't respost them, but I will post some raw videos over the protests of Sam. Of Sam's vista pics, most are either looking up a pass to climb or the valley we had to climb down. Most of the time we were off trail following random snow tracks or making our own trail up or down.

 Most passes looked like this going up. Notice you don't see a trail.

 I'm starting to resemble a real mountain man

 Loved the views.

Sam glassading down.

I do it with far more grace....

Typical hiking day for us.

Typical swollen waterfall.

We had to go upstream to find a safer place to cross this river.

More technical crossing for Sam.

Cool bridge.

 This pass was special because we briefly left the PCT to climb Goodale pass. We had the entire mountain to ourselves and it was completely trail less.

 One of the many lakes we passed.

 Every back country ranger we met were very friendly. 

 Most high country lakes were still frozen.

 We tended to group together through the tougher sections.

 Post holing. Irritating and can be dangerous. I fell through the ice coming down Muir pass and landed in a pond.

 Looking at a frozen lake which often meant we were walking on a wet trail.

 All the rivers and waterfalls are swollen.

 Mosquitos are relentless regardless of our quiver of countermeasures.

'Muscle' a really cool guy from Tokyo. One of many people we talked with. Sam and I say hello to everyone we pass and chat with everyone that is willing. We've met some really cool people this way.

 Hey guys! Red, jet, tyler, brook and sarrah. Goods times at camp.

*Shout out to the 'Old Farts Brigade' your ride to VVR and especially the ice cold beer made our day. Thank you!

As I said it has been epic and we still have yosemite valley to go. Its also tougher to resupply. We are using a resupply company to hand deliver a box to us at sonora pass for example. See you next or two.

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SAM: Ha sido el trecho más largo, remoto, duro, y el más bonito.

Despues de salir de bishop y caminar de vuelta al camino nos tocaba pasar un sube y baja de pases de montañas, lo que significaba las mejores vistas xD

La experiencia es unica, eres tu y la naturaleza, estabamos en un parque nacional donde esta prohibido cazar, por lo que los animales no tienen miedo de los humanos.

                                          

Pasamos por 6 pases de montaña después de Forester, casi uno cada mas 2 dias extras que nos tomo para llegar de un pase a otroen dos ocasiones, en total, todos con su propia belleza y su propia dificultad. Los lagos y las vistas, los lugares donde acampamos, cada lugar mas bonito que el anterior, simplemente algo dificil de explicar con palabras, lo que me deja con poco que escribir. 

(el intento de foto al zorro XD)

arriba estan las fotos de Glen pass y todo lo que vimos hasta llegar al siguiente pase

arriba lo mismo pero con Pinchot pass (y sucesivamente con las siguientes fotos) XD

Mather pass (personalmente mi seccion favorita ♥)

Muir pass (el que tenia mas nieve)

 y penultimo, Selden pass

Y

Descansamos en un resort 30 millas atras, en Vermillion Valley Resort

Donde pudimos descansar y lavarnos antes de continuar para llegar a nuestro verdadero punto de descanso, pero para regresar al camino oficial teniamos dos opciones, tomar un bote a traves de el lago que separaba el resort del camino para traspasar Silver pass, o rodear el lago y pasar otro pase, saltando Silver pero haciebdo otro en su lugar, el bote era 20 dolares por persona, y ademas tomarlo solo hacia que caminemos 2 millas menos que el otro metodo, por lo que no merecia la pena pagar 40 dolares por 2 millas, asi que preferimos caminar todo el camino y pasar por Goodale pass, 

lo cual fue una experiencia unica ya que, como nadie pasaba por alli, teniamos toda la montaña para nosotros solos ademas de que el camino estaba "menos usado" por asi decirlo, y fue otro tipo de experiencia, para llegar al pueblo principal, primero debiamos pasar por otro resort llamado red Meadows donde conocimos a un grupo de tres chicos y a dos chicas, y un señor con el que no hablamos durante mucho tiempo y se fue temprano en la mañana, compartimos el campamento y tuvimos una muy linda noche junto al fuego ^^ fue una experiencia muy confortante y la razon por la que merecio la pena quedarnos alli durante la noche.

 ahora estamos en Mammoth Lakes, donde estamos descansando en un hotel xD con cama y una buena ducha que viene bien despues de tanto tiempo, saldremos de nuevo a la aventura! con un mejor planeo de nuestro viaje xD tenemos que vencer el invierno!