A hard year to hike the PCT

[flagscott]

Not Arizona related, but here's an interesting article on the hazards of hiking through the Sierra Nevada in a big snow year. The links are worth clicking through to hear the stories from the hikers themselves. The story from Marcus Mazzaferri is especially gripping.

The really scary part is that probably 50% or more of thru-hikers have yet to enter the Sierra. Starting late was smart for them, but the snow will not be gone when they get there.

https://www.outsideonline.com/2193351/p ... erous-year

[rcorfman]

I read Marcus Mazzaferri's personal account on Facebook. It's intense. He was lucky in that he heard the backup beeping of some heavy snow removal equipment and moved towards it as fast as he was able. I think that was at or near Tualumne Meadows. He figures if he didn't hear that when he did, he'd most likely be dead now.

[Tough_Boots]

I'm sure @dallinW will have details to share when he's off the trail!

[rcorfman]

I'm sure @dallinW will have details to share when he's off the trail!

He just reached Kennedy Meadows South the other day so will be heading into the Sierra now.

[outdoor_lover]

I have a couple of Friends that are through Hiking, only one on the PCT though and after 490 Miles starting from Mexico, he was at the Point where he was going to be hitting a lot of Snow and he's decided to Pull the Plug. It's just too much this Year. I think he's making a Wise Decision. The other Friend is Hiking Across the Sierras into Yosemite and he has decided to keep going. He's only 10 Days out from getting it done, but it's very slow going at this Point, not just from the Snow Levels, but also the River Levels trying to find places to get across...

[azbackpackr]

My friend from Yuma who hiked almost the whole PCT last year went as far as Kennedy Meadows, and then skipped the Sierras as some, but not all, were doing. Then she tried hiking south from Tahoe into the high Sierra, but was still too early, so she gave up and hiked the rest of California and all of Oregon. In September she went back and hiked the Sierras. Then she went back north and tried to hike Washington, but by then was too late in the season--she got about halfway. So she is finishing it this coming August, 270 miles to go.

[DallinW]

I just made it out of the High Sierra via Kearsarge yesterday.

The heat wave has made rivers out of all the creeks. Above 10,000ft we were either walking on snow or through water. We even had a "Seasonal Creek" ford which was challenging.

The first 2 days out of Kennedy Meadows, the trail was almost completely dry. We hit our first big patches of snow as we ended day 2 @ 10,700ft near Poison Springs Meadow.

Day 3 we started by hiking up to Chicken Spring Lake @ 11,200ft. This is where we hit our first continuous stretch of snow, maybe 2 miles of it before we were back to small manageable patches that you could easily avoid. We could tell it was getting hotter than it should have been up there.

We crossed 2 major creeks on Day 3. For the first one we had to hike a little ways up the Creek to a spot where it forked out in a meadow. The rapids in the main channel were still pretty strong but it was a pretty easy ford. Some chose to cross a skinny log that got you half way across to some shallow water. We thought it looked too easy to fall off the log and if you did you would get dragged under and pinned. Some hikers from a group behind us chose to cross the log and exactly that happened, some guy fell in, got pinned, and 3 people had to jump in to pull him out...

The 2nd ford on Day 3 (Whitney Creek) was really straightforward. The trail crossed the creek where it was really wide. The water was "just balls deep" for me and another tall Hiker (his words lol), for others it was hip deep. It was wide and the current was very slow, so it wasn't difficult. We camped that night a little ways up a side trail for Mt. Whitney next to Whitney Creek.

Day 4 we did Whitney which didn't require any Creek crossings because they were all still covered by snow bridges. We left our stuff in the same camping spot and slackpacked to the top. Again we could tell it was way warmer than it should have been and on the way back there was a lot of water running in places it hadn't been on the way up that morning, inches deep. When we got back to camp we noticed that Whitney Creek had rose quite a bit and it was overflowing, creating some new small side streams.

Day 5 was when it got real. We had 3 major creeks to cross (Wallace, Wright, and Tyndall). We crossed the challenging Seasonal Stream first, which had a current strong enough to push me over. It was very narrow and over quick, but the water still came up to around my thighs.

When we first got to Wallace it didn't look bad. We laughed at the shin deep water and crossed. Turns out that was overflow from the actual creek. We sent people up and down the creek to scout for places to cross. Upstream it forked a couple of times in a meadow, but downstream we had found another group who just crossed and they showed us where they did it. The Crossing was shallow at first but dropped into a deep swift moving channel. It now became a team effort to get everyone across. Most lost their balance in the deep channel and needed assistance from someone on the other side. The deep channel came up to just below my waist, and it came up to just above the belly button for the smallest person in our crew.

Wright Creek was the most sketchy. We could hear it roaring from a good distance as we approached it. We spent over an hour hiking up along the creek to scout for spots. We eventually found a spot where it was wide and went for it. I took a spill just before the other side and started to be pulled back towards the current, the first person that crossed pulled me out by grabbing me by my pack. One of the girls in our group fell in the main current and started being swept downstream before one of the guys jumped in and basically threw her by the pack back to shallow water, in the process almost being swept down creek himself. Wright came up to above my wait at the deepest part.

We walked up Tyndall til it forked 3 times before crossing each of the forks. Only knee because it was at such a high elevation, but still fast moving and it could have easily carried someone down creek.

We made it probably 10 miles that day including off trail travel to scout out crossings. This was the first day we hiked on snow continuously pretty much all day.

Day 6 we crossed Forrester Pass (exhilarating!) We crossed a tributary to Bubbs Creek on the north side which was also a river. We got lucky with a downed log that reached the entire length. Another day where we maybe saw a single mile of dry trail and the rest was completely covered in snow.

Day 7 we exited over Kearsarge where I got to see my first self arrest in action when one of my partners fell, and then began to slide down towards the lake when he was trying to get up. He caught himself with his ice axe pretty quickly and only slid like 5 feet but it was still nerve wracking to see...

We are going to skip up to Truckee or Belden, continue north to Canada, then flop back and SoBo the Sierra in the fall to finish. I'll get to summit Whitney (again) as a finish and then exit via Whitney Portal. There will still be plenty of snow up north and that's fine because it's actually really fun to play in and more forgiving than the creeks. We are looking to avoid the extremely swollen creeks.

It was some of the most adventurous and beautiful hiking I've ever done, but it's also clear things are only going to get worse for a while and that it will be out of my experience level. The snow got deeper and more present at lower elevations as we headed north in the Sierra. The consequences are real and the creeks are hard to judge without getting in them. I won't say it's not doable because I'm sure a few will make it through, but it is definitely out of my skill level and I worry about a couple of my friends who are choosing to go forward.

I'm definitely humbled by the mountains.

[flagscott]

@DallinW If you're hiking in a group, you guys should think about llnking arms and crossing in a group on those stream crossings. I can't recall ever hearing of someone getting washed downstream in a group like that.

Glad to hear you made it safely this far. This thread makes me really, really glad I hiked in an average snow year.