Day 27
Start: Wright Mountain
Finish: Wrightwood
Daily Mileage: 7.6
PCT Mile: 369.3
Cookie Monster and I got an early start at 5:40 as soon as it was light enough. We would be starting to traverse snow, and we wanted it to be as firm as possible to minimize postholing.
Though we only passed a couple small snow patches yesterday, the snow set in immediately as we left camp. It did not get very cold last night, definitely above freezing, but the snow had definitely iced up despite the temperature. That was a good thing though, and we quickly donned our microspikes.
There was good bootpath, but at times it was easier to walk on top of the snow. There were some steeper sections, but the bootpath let us easily navigate them.
We stayed on the trail as it loosely paralleled a forest road below. Many hikers had taken to the road, but we stuck to the trail since it was still passable with bootpath. However, we soon hit a roadblock in the form of a steep icy section of snow. The trail went up and there were only a couple prints headed in that direction. Most prints walked or slid down to the road. The trail still appeared in steep snow, so we decided to go down to the road as it looked much safer, though still covered in feet of snow.
Getting down was easier said than done though. The ice was rock hard, and our microspikes couldn’t make a dent in it. Full crampons would have been needed for decent traction.
Cookie Monster decided to slide down, but I didn’t want to do that even with my ice axe since it was steep and very hard ice. I ended up getting my ice axe out and traversing down. First time I had to take out my ice axe this trip despite carrying it for 200 miles, besides using it as a killer cat hole digger.
As I started my traverse, I couldn’t even jam the spike of my ice axe into the ice, it was so hard. I had to make multiple attempts for most steps. I also struggled with traction from the microspikes, but I did the best I could kicking in steps. I slowly made my way down and successfully reached the road without falling.
The edges of civilization began to appear with the tops of ski lifts off to our right, a snow covered closed campground, more ski lifts, and finally back to navigable trail down to a road. There is a trail to hike into Wrightwood, but it is steep and snowy this time of year, so we opted to try hitching.
I figured the hitch could be challenging though since the road was closed shortly after our hitch point, so there might be only a few people out exploring the limited scenic stops available. I rolled up to the parking lot with a couple of cars there, and was immediately presented with an apple from a day hiker. We waited for about 15 minutes before a car came up to drop off a couple backpackers, which I figured would be our shot to get down. Sure enough, Jeff offered to take us into town.
It was still morning, so we got huge breakfasts that were actually enough to hold us over for lunch. The hardware store was very friendly and was the hiker hangout between doing our town chores. The place we were staying has a strict 4pm check-in policy, and a large group of hikers that had gathered had dispersed for our lodgings. Lots of old and new faces.
Then it was just relaxation and food for the night. Gotta restore in town. It will be about a week until the next one.
2 comments
Max, I’ve been following your PCT trek. I really enjoy the journal text interspersed with photos of what’s just been described. Together they summon memories of my own PCT thru hike 16 years ago.
Also, having complete the Hayduke as a “warm up, you’ll have no trouble with the PCT. Happy hiking
Yeah, I like the interspersed pictures more because it is closer to telling the story than the social media style of some words and a bunch of random pictures.