Day 41 – Water, water, everywhere

Mileage: 17 miles

From talking to other people, we knew that we had three major steam crossings to do before Forester Pass, so we woke up early to get to them before the sun started to melt the snow to feed the streams. We got some nice views as the sun was rising, but we continued noticing how wet everything was. Meadows were swamps, the trail was a creek, there was just too much water to go around.

Swamp

We walked for a few miles through the soaked landscape before we arrived at our first true crossing: Wallace Creek. We walked up and down the bank looking for a good crossing, but the trail was our best option, so we put everything important in waterproof bags and started walking across one by one. We were joined by another hiker named Fritz that was waiting at the crossing when we got there.

Hach-P crossing

We all made it safely because it wasn’t flowing too strongly, but it wasn’t too much further before we encountered Wright Creek. A short walk downstream yielded a walkable crossing to an island which would allow us to use a log to cross the rest.

Savage crossing

Again, everyone was fine and we had no problems, so we proceeded towards Tyndall Creek. Before we got there, we went to talk to the rangers about Forester Pass. Contrary to everything we’ve read, every ranger we’ve talked to suggested waiting until mid-morning to let the snow soften a bit before attempting it. This meant that after our next creek, we were going to try the pass!

The next creek, Tyndall Creek, was no problem if you walk upstream for a few minutes, so we started heading towards Forester. Above a certain point on the trail, everything quickly turned to snow.

Fritz, Dodger, and Savage

We walked for a couple of miles in the snow before we started seeing Forester. I quickly got some ice axe practice in to make sure I knew what I was doing and then we continued the approach. 

As we got closer, we realized that most of the switchbacks were covered in snow, so we were going to have to climb straight up ice, rocks, and snow to get to the trail. Fun!

Now, I say fun because I think that kind of thing is exciting and enjoyable. Not everyone shares this sentiment. Flame and I made quick work of the climb up to the trail, but Fritz, Dodger, and Savage were not as happy about the situation. It was a fairly steep climb with potential consequences in the case of a fall, so they were nervous. Flame and I, having already finished the hard part, decided to help them through it. We traversed the snow chutes again to solidify the steps, did a bit of trail maintenance to make sure the rocks were safe, and Flame actually went back down and carried Dodger’s pack all the way up to solid ground. He’s a great mule!

After a long and arduous process of directing people over steep, loose rock fields, we eventually got everyone, including an old German JMT hiker named Rudy who sounded like his heart was exploding, up to the trail and across the snow chutes to solid ground. By this point, the hard part was over and we just had the infamous snow chute left.

INFAMOUS

The snow chute was actually super simple after what we had just done, so we easily made it to the top. Whew. 😅 

After eating time, celebrating time, and glamour shots time, it was finally hiking time again. Luckily, we were going downhill on snow. Time for glissading!

In Lone Pine, I bought some American flag swim trunks specifically to protect my pants while glissading, so I put those on and started sliding. We hiked a bit to the first good (really steep) slide, but once everyone had gotten over the first time nerves, we were hooked! As long as you avoid the rocks, sliding down a hill is WAY better than walking, though we got soaked.​​

​The trail doesn’t really exist in the snow, and when it does, it’s a river, so we continued slipping and sliding down the hills near the trail to get down. We followed some tracks in the snow that were not anywhere near the trail and had a somewhat tough time finding our way down, but with the help of GPS and a set of JMT maps, we made it back to the trail. It started to get dark and people were getting very tired since we had been hiking for about 13 hours at this point, so we looked for a viable campsite. Rocks were out, snow was out, and the swamp all around us was out. We tried to get down to a Bubbs Creek campsite, but were blocked by a crazy “seasonal stream” and decided to camp next to it with Fritz and 111.

We had a small fire to dry everything out (ha, good joke… dry doesn’t exist out here) and went to bed with plans to cross the creek and head out to Bishop through Kearsarge Pass in the morning.