After a frigid damp night, we packed up our gear and broke camp as quick as possible so we could warm up on the trail. I walked over my first snow drift since mt san jancinto. The terrain was changing fast. The trees were getting taller and denser with every mile. The trail also became much more rugged and rocky. We took alot of breaks to enjoy all the shady scenic viewpoints. It was also the first day we didn't have to check the water report. In fact, with all the snow melt, I stopped carrying water altogether. I just drank at the source whenever I was thirsty. I also stopped filtering water altogether. It had become such a chore in the desert to treat my water. I usually take a look at the topo maps and check the watershed of the streams I'm at just to make sure I'm getting it from a clean source. I know I'm taking a risk each time i do it, but there is nothing more liberating (especially after 700 miles of desert) than scooping up some crystal clear, ice cold snow melt from a stream. In fact everyone in my group stopped filtering as well. We started calling ourselves the giardi party. Hopefully none of us actually gers sick haha. It really felt like we were ithe sierras now with mountain peaks surrounding us. We ended up camping just passed a stream around 6 that evening. We still had nearly 3 hours of daylight so we spent the evening opening up about aallhe different parts of our lives that led us to the trail. Everyone opened up sharing mamy things that shared with anyone on the trail yet. We all came out here for different reasons, but we all seemed to have the same intangible desire to find direction and inner peace on the trail. That night in my tent, after reflecting on what everyone had said, i felt like had taken a few more steps in finding hat direction and peace.
Day 49 18ish miles
We seem to break camp in the exact same order each morning. Sam now "sheriff" always hits the trail first. Beans and pacer usually follow abiut 15 minutes later. I'm also always 4 th to break camp and dilly is always last. My goal is always to start hiking at 630, but if I don't it's not the end of the world. We came across our first alpine lake of the sierras. We debated going swimming but it was still morning so it was pretty old. Dozens and dozens of lakeswere ahead of us in the days to come so passed on the swimming. I started to really slow down my hikjng pace to enjoythe scenery. I found myself doing 360s on trail taking in the sights. I was also tripping alot becaise I was always looking at the mountains around me. Orange stream crossing were becoming more common now on the trail. There are three options you have you get to a high warer crossing. 1. Search up or downstream for a log or rock crossing. 2. Take offf you shoes and go barefoot/sandals across. Or 3. Just Got straighr through with your shoe. At first i refused to get my sjoes wet, but afrer dozens of stream crossings i just started walking straight through in my shoes. It's actuallykind of liberating to just barrel through a stream crossing not caring if your shoes get wet. Dilly and I had a long conversation about religion and my brother as we hiked. Our views on religion are very different but we are always very respectful towards eachother about it. I've learned a lot from her perspective, and I hope she has learned some from mine. Our goal for the day was to camp at guitar lake just below the summit, but due to the number of hikers this year, the park wasn't allowing any camping there. So we camped at Crabtree meadows a about 8 miles back from the summit. I convinced our group that we should try and make thesummit by sunrise. I missed it the last time i did Whitney on the JMT, so i wanted to make sure i saw it this time. We went to bed early that night in anticipation of waking up at 1 30 am to start hiking. As i laid in my sleeping bag that night i couldn't help but think about the last time I was on mt whitney. It was where i had proposed to my then girlfriend after hiking the JMT together. I wasn't sure how i was going to feel when i got up there again. However, I though about how young and naive i was three years ago. I look back at myself then and how much I have grown up to this poin and how Im so happy to be solo hiking the pct. I might not be doing this hike had we gotten married. I actually went to bed excited that evening to make a new memory at the top of whitney.
Day 50 - 17-18 miles (I've kinda stopped countjng)
I arose at 130 am, packed my things as quickly as I could and hit the trail at 150. My group was slow getting out of their tents, amd i wanted to make sure i made it in time for sunrise so i hit the trail by myself. I found myself so excited to get up to whitney I was practically in a jog.the whitney trail was an out and back side trail so i was able to leave all my heavy stuff in amp and slack pack it to the top. With the light pack, a couple caffeine pills and all the excitement I was flying up the trail. I thought to myself "so this is what it's like to be ultralight." I was moving so fast that I stripped down to just my shorts, thermal top, gloves and hat to stay cool despite it being below freezing outside. It was very dark that morning as there was hardly any moon, and there were lots of snow drift and streams to cross. About an hour into the hike I lost the trail somehow. I think I crossed a snow drift and wandered up a dry creek bed by mistake. I eventually found myself scrambling over boulders trying to find th trail. I had already gone too far to try and retrace my steps if i want to make it by sunrise. I had a general idea of where the trail was having hiked it before so i kept rock hopping forward hoping I'd eventually run in to it again. However the rocks started getting bigger and eventually i found myself what looked like a cliff or a ravine edge. I tried scrambling down but it was too steep, especially with just headlight to see forward. I looked at my watched and realized i probably wasn't going to make sunrise anymore. I decided to just sit down andenjoy the spectacular stars and wait until light to find the trail again before I hurt myself. Just as I sat down I spotted a train of headlights in the distance. I could see the trail!! Now that I knew exactly where the trail was i could make my way back to it easier. After about 15 more minutes of boulder hopping and rock scrambling I found myself back on trail. I took a look at my watch and realized i just might make it if i moved quick. I started cruising. I could see headlights ahead of me along the switch backs working their way up to the top. It was a cool sight to see 20 or so headlights scattered across the mountain side as i hiked. I went as fast as i could up the trail. I'd have to slow down every now and the to cross the snow drifts as one misstep and you'd be sliding down the mountain. It was getting colder and colder as i went up. I reach in my pack to get a swig of water and realized my water bottles hsd completely frozen solid. And i was still in shorts!!. But there was no time to change. Before I knew it I had passed all the headlights front of me. Being in minimal clothing forced me move quick in order stay warm. About a mile the summit I could just start to see the horizon start to flow a little. I was going to make it! The closer I got faster I moved. I stopped only once since finding the trail to put my down jacket on. I made it to the top though with minutes to spare. I looked around and realized i was the only one there. I had the whole summit to myself. I put on some more clothes and set up mt tripod in preparation for the sunset. My face amd hands were completely numb from the biting wind. i could barely get my fingers to to hit the buttons for my camera. It was an amazing sunrise. Probably the best I've ever seen my entire life. All the snow capped peaks around me turned pink as the sun came up. I watched the sun rise up for about a half hour and then ducked into the emergency shelter on top to warm up. One by one thee other hikers crammed in to the shelter to warm up as well. There were about 20 of us in the tiny room at one point. Everyone had there sleeping bags out to keep warm. I stayed in the shelter until my group showed up and then it started making my way back down. I found a nice snow field to glisade down saving me from having to go down some switch backs. On another snow field I taught dilly how to self arrest with an ice axe. We all got back to our campsite and took a nap. Later we hiked on to try and get a little closer to forester pass so we wcould hit it in the morning. We crossed of bighorn plateau wich gave 360 view allo the mountains around us. We just happened to camp at the same campsite i had camped at on the JMT. i remembered the eating dinner there with about 10 other hikers and How about a dozen park service mules barreled through our campsite. It was fun recollecting on myit trip 3 years ago, but ut was also fun to be making new memories on this section now
Day 51 - 25 miles