OK, so I’m overdue in explaining exactly what’s been up here with our Wandering Traveler, and need to fill in a few blanks.
He was home for a rest for almost two weeks after Tehachapi. BC folks know but the rest of you don’t and massive apologies to any and all we didn’t get fully updated. This was more or less a planned break – he did have a week off built into his original schedule once he hit Kennedy Meadows, but that happened early. Here’s why…
Right before I picked him up at Tehachapi he announced to me, exact quote, “My fucking feet are fucking fucked!”. (Sorry to any and all for the language.) If you remember that final video before Tehachapi he’s complaining about his feet. That’s because they grew another size.
Yes, in the hiker world that is super common, and he’d already grown from a size 12 to a 13.5 Wide shoe, but with all the pounding that one’s feet take on the trail the bones in the feet (there’s like 200 of them or something, right?) continue to spread. So, now he’s a size 14W and if he needs to go larger, then he’ll have to find another boot brand. Common question – do they go back? No, they don’t – this change is forever. Amazing what the body takes and how it adapts, eh?
So he rested his feet – the first couple of days they were so swollen I couldn’t even see the veins in them, much less his normal foot bones – but they did get better. Then he also of course got his new shoes and tried those out.
But wait – there’s more! That’s not the only reason for the time out. Weather, snow and ice were also BIG factors. Huge in fact.
It was a low snow year in the Sierra’s until late spring. May came on with a vengeance. Two non-PCT hikers were killed due to weather the last week of May and there were tons of reports of hiker teams bailing out of the Sierra’s, unable to complete the summit of Forester Pass. A few examples from posts on the Facebook groups:
(A few terms: Postholing – that means you’re on snow, and think about several feet of it. When it’s frozen, all’s good. But as it starts to melt the crust weakens and suddenly you’re in up to your knee, or hip, or waist…you get the point. An ice axe and crampons are pictured below, for those who’ve never seen them) Crampons or Mini Spikes are made to help hold you in place on ice on the trail. The axe is so if you do fall and start to slide down a snowy slope you can use that to help catch yourself and stop your decent. (That’s assuming you don’t impale yourself with it first…)
There has been at least one helicopter rescue off this section that we know about so far, with others having to come off trail for various injuries and other ailments. But others do make it through.
Another fun note on the weather – the Sierra’s make their own weather – so you really don’t know what can happen. There’s even this fun thing I’ve never heard of called ‘thunder snow’. As in think of your regular kind of thunderstorm when it rains, except there, it’s so cold it snows on you. Awesome! Makes you want to go – right!?!!???!
But that is the thing, this section of the Sierra Nevada/California mountains is some of the most spectacular beautiful scenery in the American West. So if you’re working this damn hard, you want to see it and enjoy it!
Thus the perplexing pile of emotions our Wanderer Scarf finds himself in, and why after too many days rest at home he was afraid of getting soft and so we headed up to Kennedy Meadows, which is at mile 702 and the launch point for this leg of the journey. That was a super cool experience, so I’ll share lots more on that soon. Cheers!