Day 79
Start: Ebbetts Pass
Finish: The Nipple
Daily Mileage: 22.9
PCT Mile: 1070.9
After more than a couple hundred miles of not a single road crossing the trail, they are now a more regular sight. Shortly after leaving camp, I crossed a paved road, and it wouldn’t be the last for the day. I guess it is to be expected with getting into more regular terrain and out of the high Sierra.
For a couple hours the trail followed beneath volcanic ridges The ridges were sharp and broken and spectacular scenery, and were awesome to travel beneath. Each ridge was unique and had its own formations. The trail was also pretty sedate, allowing me to be looking up instead of at my feet or huffing up a climb. Truly enjoyable hiking!
There were a couple areas with amazing old growth juniper that looked as big as an ancient cedar. They were full trees, and I have never seen juniper like that. They had lost some sprigs which were trampled on the trail letting off that amazing juniper aroma passing underneath them. Quite impressive.
We took an early lunch to regroup for the first challenge of the day. There was a steep snow traverse that had rather mixed reviews on Farout. Getting to it, we did a brief scramble down and around the first snow finger, got back up to the trail, and crossed the second finger. Not too bad. Then we turned the corner and saw it was far from over. The steepest snow chute was ahead, and it was quite a drop if you fell. Cookie Monster and I just sent our ice axes home, so it was down to careful stepping to get across it. I focused only on my feet and ensuring I had good steps kicked in since I couldn’t fall. I made my way across until I stepped onto the trail in front of me and breathed a sigh of relief. Should have had the ice axe on that one. We all got across safely though.
Then we were in for a treat. The trail became quite gentle, almost flat, and almost snow-free. I ramped up my speed and was flying through it, and it was amazing to stretch my legs. We were surrounded by forest and could only catch the occasional views of distant mountains, but that didn’t matter to me. I wanted to fly, and I did.
I kept up a good pace along with Cookie Monster for a couple hours, knocking down the miles. We came across a dirt road where a state worker was just passing in his truck. He said that there were some people set up giving out trail magic a few miles ahead. Now we had even more reason to fly over the trail, the promise of food different than our disgusting normal hiking fare.
We arrived at another paved road crossing, and sure enough, the Hoovers were there with chips, cookies, pop, and hot dogs. And shade and chairs. They had driven all the way from Nebraska to the PCT just to give out trail magic since their son was a triple crowner and they enjoyed doing it. That is quite amazing that they chose to spend their vacation time and all of the travel time just to meet and talk with hikers. Truly a great stop.
But we had more trail to do. We did a long gentle climb up the side of The Nipple, and once we got a view of the top, the reason for the name was quite evident and deserved. We crossed abreast above some lakes and towering above the surrounding landscape for a very enjoyable traverse.
