October 10

Distance: 25.2 miles | Ascent: 3300′ | Descent: 5100′

Lunch: J – bacon mac (A), A – Korean beef (A-)

Dinner: J&A – instant potatoes (A, A), and mac n cheese (B+, B)

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We’re outrunning a storm on foot! Sorta. We’ve been warned about the storm that’ll blanket the Sierras in snow for the season. Due to the unpredictability of the weather through the various valleys in the mountains, we weren’t sure when or where the storm might hit first. We also weren’t sure if it could come earlier than expected and catch us off guard. Fortunately, we got out of the really high stuff before too late.

We were warned that today at noon might have a chance of showers, snow or rain, depending on how far south we were. In the morning, the clouds were zooming above us. We can’t remember the last time we saw clouds moving so quickly! The wind on the ground was also quite strong. Alex used her buff to shield her face against the wind. Clouds were also forming on the horizon, right at our eye level!

But, when we stopped for lunch near Edward’s Airforce Base at 10:30, the clouds vanished. We were huddled down between some rocks to shield from the wind, watching loud jets zoom around overhead. When we got going again at 11:30, the horizon was clear! At least, until the totally definite and wicked storm for next week that’ll lay down feet of snow all over this part of the Sierras. That’s the actual storm we’re trying to outrun.

We keep drifting further downhill and away from the High Sierras that dominated our life just days ago. It’s surreal how far we can go in a few days, yet how close we still are to it all. Moving on foot really isn’t fast in the grand scheme of it all. And yet, we walked over 25 miles today in about 10 hours – including all our breaks! That’s a good pace and matches our best prior to the Sierras. If we can keep this up, we’ll be in Campo with time to spare!

In these lower elevation hills, more curvatious rock formations protrude from the ground.

If the trees part just right, we can still see the jagged peaks we climbed over two days ago.

Towards the end of the day, though, we turned a corner and descended quickly. We might not see the peaks of the Sierras again. The new scenery is remarkable in its own right. We’re now bouncing between meadows with far more bush and scrub than we’d seen in a long time.

We know that this scenery is also temporary. We descend more again tomorrow towards our long-awaited resupply at Kennedy Meadows South. Then, we’ll be in the desert section! It’s the last section of the five PCT sections: Washington, Oregon, NorCal, Sierra, and desert.