Day 80 Bishop Pass and Muir Pass

Start: Long Lake 9.6 miles on Bishop Pass Trail + 12.4 PCT miles End: 844.6 Total: 22 miles

It was hard to wake up and start hiking. I was very sad to have to leave Nick and that he wasn’t coming with me. I made some coffee and ate my crossaint while he packed up the tent. We said our goodbyes as he would be heading back to work and SLC for a bit. He was planning on getting his bike and doing some mt. Biking and working remote around different areas I’ll be in so I will see him soon. Still I had grown acustomed to hiking and being with each other so often so it was gonna be a hard transition. 

I was a bit nervous for whatever passes remained and any stream crossings. I was confidant in my ability to do it by myself but it still would feel safer and be more fun with other people.

We said our goodbyes and I headed up toward the pct while he headed down to his car. It was a fairy straightforward ascent and I remembered the way pretty well. The pond we had drew just a few days earlier was now vacant of any frozen ice. A lot of snow had melted but there was still plenty on the path. I weaved my way through trail, rocks, and snow. Right before the final climb I met another hiker coming down, named Karma. We greeted each other then I continued the last climb. 

I went up a super steep wall then shot far left, overshooting the pass. When I recorrected myself the postholing had begun. There was 2/3 miles at the top that were pretty rough. The snow hadn’t been getting cold enough to freeze so a lot of the it was super soft and there wasn’t a very defined trail up there. I postholed quite a bit which didn’t help my emotions. I kept remembering coming up the trail with Nick and was sad to be all alone. 

I eventually made it down where the snow had melted, and left behind so much water. I trudged through the water and got to the site we had camped a few nights before. I then started the steep switchbacks to get back to the pct. I crossed a sketchy stream and almost lost my footing but got it and was able to get through the fast moving part. 

I told myself I would take a break when I got to the pct. I could see the intersection below and two hikers waiting there. Maybe these guys will be my new trail family I thought. As I approached I could see a girl and a guy. The girls figure looked familiar and as I got closer I could see who it was. It was Sparks! I was so relieved to see a friendly face I shed a couple tears of joy! 

Sparks is from the Czech Republic, I hiked San Jacinto with her in March and had last seen her in Tehachapi. Her boyfriend, Martin, got 7 weeks off work to come hike with her. They started the sierras May 1st but after the first 9 days and all that snow, Sparks got Bronchitis and other illnesses so they had to take 3 weeks off. They had just gotten back to the trail 4 days earlier. What a stroke of fate that she was waiting for me at the intersection. 



We warmly greeted each other. Martin said they were about to leave and he had saw me and my badazzled hat and told Sparks, it’s a girl, do you want to wait for her? I had thought about taking a break in the way down but kept going. Funny thing. Had my timing been one minute off I might not have seen them in the Sierras. 

I forgoed my break as they wanted to keep hiking. Sparks told me that they were running out of food and electricity for their phone. They had anticipated the 113 mile stretch from Kearsarge to Mammoth taking them 6.5 days, they had not taken into account how difficult it would be with the passes and the snow. I had packed 6 days of food for the 80 ish mile stretch to get from Bishop Pass to Mammoth, I didn’t have much of a plan but was thinking I might meet my friend in Yosemite mid June so I had time to kill and planned on taking it slow. 

However, the forecast was rain and I wouldn’t want to take it slow in the rain. I offered some food and electricity to Martin and Sparks and they said they thought they might be okay but maybe. I figured I would walk with them for a bit before our paths diverged. The next pass was Muir Pass, it wasn’t suppose to be as hard as the others but I still didn’t want to do it that day. I planned on camping at the last snow free spot before the pass. 

We hiked and caught up and had lunch at a random spot on trail. I was starting to debate if I wanted to wait around a week for my friend. Waiting in Yosemite wouldn’t be the worst thing but I also would like to finish the trail mid to late August and that means I have to pick up the pace a bit and lay off some of the side questing. I was also enjoying the company and being with sparks again. 

I decided I would just go with the flow and that meant continuing hiking with Sparks and Martin. It would be a tough day, they were planning on going up and over Muir pass. It was the afternoon so that mean there would be a lot of post holing going up and coming down. I agreed to go with them under the condition that I could just follow their post holes. An older German man, Beast, with limited English joined our group just after lunch and we all headed up together. 

There was some patchy snow until the snow field and steady climbing began. We passed a lot of frozen lakes and really didn’t post hole as much as I thought we would. The lakes and the surrounding mountains were beautiful as we slowly and steadily gained more and more elevation. Eventually we arrived at Helen’s Lake, a huge lake right before the pass. We then started up, it was a shorter and less steep Pass and I was expecting but soon enough we were at the top. 

There is a hut made out of rocks at the top that was built in honor of John Muir. We checked it out and signed the log book inside. It was 5pm, I was in favor of sleeping in that shelter but Sparks thought it was best to go down in elevation and do more miles. They are trying to get to Kennedy Meadows North by a certain date so Martin can catch a bus to LA and fly home so they are kind of in a hurry. I was just tagging along at this point so I agreed. We had 6 miles to go until the first site without snow

On the way down the postholing became much worse. Martin fearlessly took the lead the entire time and in his donut hole shorts, postholed 70-80% of his steps. I was in the back the most of the time so Sparks might take a different route and Beast another one so I could really piece together the best route. Meaning the strongest snow and the least postholing. But when they post holed every step I just graciously followed in their premade postholes. This went on for 3.5 hours before we made it down to a lake and saw some tents. 

It was getting dark and the sky threatening rain. We started to doubt finding a spot for all of us so agreed to split up. I found a decent spot that would work good enough for my little tent and called it quits there while they hiked just around the corner of the lake to another spot. I had barely gotten my tent set up when it started to sprinkle. I hurried to get all my things in order and crawled in and made some ramen and did some journaling before finally getting to bed around 10 pm