July 15, 2017
Sonora Pass to Mile 1028
Pacific Crest Trail Thru-Hike: Day 71

Oh what a wonderful resupply! The proprietor of Sonora Pass Resupply, Casey, is a gem. We are charging our stuff, having a Paleo meal, and got rid of our trash (!!). We have so much good food now and so many good stories! Casey and his wife have been around the backpacking block, and they know things.

He told us about doing the JMT and the permit bullshit that PCT/JMT hikers have to deal with. Turns out the PCT permits are issued by the PCTA and are basically fake—you could get one from the forest service if you couldn’t get the day you wanted for the PCT. Same with JMT. You could just get a PCT permit for SOBO and use it to hike the JMT and just make sure you added Whitney Portal access. Anyway, we haven’t started walking yet and it’s late morning. Still waiting for the battery to charge.

Self arresting with my fingertips

We started walking around 1/1:30pm from the Sonora Pass trailhead. The trail was up and snow-covered at points, with particularly steep traverses. There was one snow-covered slope that went straight up, with a sharp boulder field that went on for about 100 feet. I slipped, and went into a headfirst slide down towards the big drop before the boulders. I dug in and dragged my fingers and nails through the snow to slow me down while putting my body in a position where my feet would hit the rocks. It worked! I slowed down enough to land standing up on the rocks and was okay with just two small scratches on my legs from dragging across the ice-snow-sharp-rock surface. Alex says my trail name should be Wolverine since it’s the second time I’ve stopped a massive slide with just my fingertips

The Jew Crew.

We continued over the ridge, leap-frogging with ‘The Jew Crew’ (as they called themselves, Yoav and Dean, two former Israeli soldiers we originally met in Hikertown). We passed them, they passed us, all the way down into the canyon and back up out of it. I tensed up each time we got within sight of each other. Our past encounters with Yoav and Dean hadn’t been pleasant—“why the fuck are you apologizing so much for everything!”

We also met Reroute and Rabbit who we had seen at the Kerrick/Rancheria river crossing.

The bird noises in this section sound like the inside of a conservatory, they are so pretty and unique.

We have another fantastic campsite where we got to watch the mountains on fire at sunset. We are 60 miles from Tahoe. Let’s GOOOOOOO! And hope for good trail.