Pinchot Pass

We take a late alpine start, we leave camp at 5:15AM and get moving. Seven says “man I almost said Mouse I am going to sleep in.” It’s 7.5 miles to Pinchot pass and it’s a beautiful area. It’s straight trail, some switch backs then the pass for 3,700’ of gain before we’re over the pass. I hit the wobbly swing bridge first, it’s swinging back and forth and wobbly. Sevens probably shaking it on the other end. It reminds me of the alpine tree course at Gunstock. My friends and I use to do it every July. Except I’m not harnessed in and I could literally die.

We get to the other side and start the climb, it starts off immediately at a 10% grade. We see a sign for a missing hiker. This dude was doing the high sierra trail in February. Sheesh that’s wild, at this point RIP Lt Kraft. After a few somber moments of talking about what happened to that guy, Seven and I switch the mood and laugh and joke to each other and say but the trail, it’s horse grade, it’s easy right? Yah right. It’s not.

We say that because majority of the PCT is like 5 to 7% which is actually pretty leisurely. You just do a ton of switch backs to get to the top.

As we continue up the trail, Seven says “hey look to your left there is a deer.” I look and there was, like four of them just minding their own business enjoying their morning like we were.

Another mile goes by and he says “hey look at this thing, what is it?” I say “I think that’s a grouse.” I use to hunt grouse back in Pittsburg NH. But I’ve never actually seen one of this kind this close just starting at me or that big. They usually flush, scare the hell out of you and fly away at a steep angle.

We continue on and see two hikers from the Netherlands, they say “they are happy to see us so we can lead them up the trail.” They were lost. We feel ya, at this point mile 5 there’s not trail, its just snow from here on out. We see a girl coming SOBO and she says “yeah snow all the way up then nothing for snow on the other side.” “Huh!?” I question her. Yeah no snow she says.

It’s now 9:30AM we’ve been hiking for a few hours, and it’s time to take a fast break. We slug some water and eat some breakfast, then just like that we are back at it again. I look at Seven and ask “how many feet till the top?” He says “411.” Roger, good number this year. There’s 3 sketchy traverses and one icy cornice to climb. We walk through them and make it up and over the top. The first thing we see is all snow. Snow as far as the eye can see, we don’t care, we’re use to snow but that girl was 100% full of shit haha. Seven and I joke and say she bailed on the climb and turned around, was embarrassed to tell us that. That’s fine, make smart safe decisions everyone. Turn around when you need to.

We walk down the only 3 switch backs that are clean of snow and then toss our spikes back on. It’s roughly 12 miles to camp and we’re positioning our selves at the base for Mather Pass tomorrow AM. Mather being just straight up sketchy we want to be there early.

As we continue down the entire area is waterfalls and beautiful blue lakes. We look at all of the campsites and joke that none of them are on far out. We find you can rely on tent sites on far out but the best campsites are the ones you just stumble upon walking.

After 5 more miles and 3 river crossings I tell Seven I’m going to pull over to do lunch, dry the feet and socks out and chill for a little. The altitude still getting me I think I should take it slow. He says he’ll join. I lay out my Tyvek and take off my socks and shoes. I take out my food and start cooking some Mac and cheese. After 30 minutes I put everything back on and we get hiking again. I feel nauseous, yay.

We look at what are options are for camping later and we pick a mile on the map. Seven heads off at his pace and I slow down to take it easy, I come across a guy Mark from Israel and we hike the last couple miles and 2 stream crossings into camp together.

While walking Mark and I chit chat about life. He is a retired paramedic, he asks me about work. I tell him about a company I use to work for and how their CEO moved manufacturing out of America to Israel 2 weeks before Hamas’s invasion. Mark asks me why, said that didn’t make sense and all the companies want to go to the US… Yeah, my answer “someone in Israel was surely getting kick backs man.” It tanked the company. Stock plummeted, 4 rounds of layoffs, CEO still got his 5Million though. That guy was a flat out asshole through and through IMO.

I ask Mark about his family, he tells me his sons are 18 and 19. I ask what their plan is, college? How come they are not out here hiking with him? He tells me they are being forced into joining the Israeli defense force as right now they are being activated to fight and defend. They are required to join at 18 and do their time.

I tell Mark I actually respect that. Fighting for one’s nation. Defending your countries freedom from foreign and domestic terrorist. Fucking right that takes a set of balls that most don’t have. I wish Mark’s kids an easy time in the service and I’ll say a prayer for them.

We get to camp and hang around and cook more food, we talk about our week, month and overall hikes. Mark tells us he’s getting up at 4AM to be out at 4:45AM for Mather Pass. Seven and I say we 100% agree and we will see him then.

After dinner I head off and do some yoga, walk the river and take some photos. Such a beautiful area, it’s starting to rain so I tuck into my tent for the night and watch a movie on Netflix. “The Hitman”