Well, it’s official. The Sierras are beautiful. The landscape we are walking through are so different from the 700 miles of desert we just hiked. The trail was insanely beautiful today. We set out this morning and immediately had to navigate the snow, walking straight uphill and over a ridge to eventually go back down the other side to find dry trail. We planned to wait for Yote and 2.Toe at Rock Creek, our first major river crossing.
The miles passed quickly and had great views in all directions. We descended to a half mile before Rock Creek and found a handwritten note on the sign marking a junction to the ranger station. It stated that where the trail crosses Rock Creek is “impassable” and that hikers should cross here at the meadow where the stream is more a series of tributaries or by the ranger station. We waited for Yote and 2.Toe and we decided to just cross here at the alternate to be safe. Wolf Bird and I set out while the other two took a snack break. The tributaries were small but quick and we crossed over some logs. I hate log crossings because I always feel like I’m gonna fall but luckily made it just fine. I then took off my shoes and walked barefoot through the meadow which was more like a swamp from all the water. It ended up being in vein because eventually the terrain became less soft and was hurting my feet so I put my shoes back on and of course they got soaked immediately. Oh well, to be expected with this years conditions. We walked alongside the far side of the creek until we eventually met back up with the trail. We spotted a couple of guys crossing the creek near the official trail crossing on a big log over raging whitewater Rapids. I couldn’t believe they were crossing there, as the outcome if they fell would be terrible. Luckily they made it just fine.
Next we had a huge uphill section which was really tiring for us. We powered through with a few quick breaks and continued on to the junction of the PCT with the Mt Whitney trail. We told Yote and 2.Toe we’d meet them either at the junction or at the ranger station which was about a mile up from the junction. We were heading up a side trail that wasn’t officially part of the PCT. It was the trail to Mt Whitney, the highest peak in the continental US and most hikers opt to make the 17 mile round trip side trip since when else will we get the chance to climb this mountain!
We had to cross a stream before the side trail and it was fairly wide and deep but not moving too quickly. I was a bit nervous and uneasy about it and where was best to cross but Wolf Bird felt it was totally safe and fine. We argued a bit about it and I was upset because I felt alone in feeling nervous. We finally made up and he walked me through the crossing which was mid thigh high and cold but not actually scary. We dried out in the sun for a while and chatted with other groups crossing. A few people from one group even went back in the creek for a dip in the freezing cold after they’d already crossed!! Crazies!
We decided to head to the ranger station to wait for the other two and were enjoying walking down the beautiful side trail until we came to a river crossing. The trail crossed what I imagine is normally a nice creek but this year is a huge raging whitewater river. There was no way I was crossing this! The water was moving so insanely fast and it was such a huge volume of water along the entire river that I couldn’t see there being a safe crossing anywhere. I spotted a note under a rock to another hiker and on a whim picked it up and read the back. It said for him to not cross there and instead go uphill off trail to meet up with a different side trail that would go to Mt Whitney. I sure was glad to find that advice as otherwise we may have had to back track quite a bit! We did what the note said and quickly met up with the other trail.
Not long after we came to an open meadow area where many hikers were hanging out and had their tents set up. We saw some hikers we knew, Gourmet, Justin, and Frenchie and chatted with them for a bit. We were surprised to see them as we knew they’d submitted Whitney on the same day as Tofu, a day or two ago. We asked what they were still doing here and it turned out that they’d had a scary morning. They’d set out early around 4AM from this very spot and headed up the trail to the next creek crossing after Mt Whitney. They said the walking was very slow because it was very icy with some steep sections and took them and everyone in their group 2 and a half hours to go 4 miles (usually this would take under and hour and a half). They had set out early in hopes of the river level being lower (less snow melts overnight since it’s colder, which means there’s less snowmelt/water in the river). Everyone was crossing this river, Wright Creek, in pairs. They described it as a pretty fast moving river in the middle that led into a chute right below where they crossed. Apparent Gourmet and Frenchie were crossing and Gourmet fell and almost got swept downstream. Frenchie had to grab her and prop himself up on rocks so he didn’t also fall in and then Justin had to go grab both of them. gourmet was very cold and nearly hypothermic and they were all shaken from the close call so they decided to turn back and come back to where we were now. They would exit to town via Whitney Portal (partway up Mt Whitney) and assess what they wanted to do after this scary mishap. It was pretty shocking to hear their story and they were all clearly and rightly shaken by it. It didn’t help ease my fears about the upcoming section!
We had planned to camp a few miles up closer to Mt Whitney, by Guitar Lake, in order to have an easier climb up Mt Whitney in the morning. But our friends told us the area around Guitar Lake was almost entirely covered by snow and there wasn’t really any place to camp. We decided to wait for 2.Toe and Yote to see if they wanted to just camp here instead, even though it meant a shorter day than we’d planned by about 3 miles. When they arrived they were torn but we ultimately decided to just cut the day short rather than not have a place to camp further up. This meant we had more time to relax and cook before bed, which was nice because we planned to get up at 3AM tomorrow to get an early start up Whitney.