The miles came a little easier today than they did yesterday. It was a cold morning – a novelty, for now – and we ate breakfast in our bags. This is something we should really train ourselves out of now that we’re getting into bear country. Eventually the sun came up over the ridge to the east and things started to warm up a little.
We started right off with a climb. It was gradual, but at this altitude we move a lot slower. It felt like how we used to struggle during our first few days out on the trail. I don’t envy anyone starting their hike on this section – it would take a lot of the fun out of it. Our morale got a boost when we took a break after a while and found that we had actually been doing better than 2 miles an hour, which I thought we’d struggle to reach. The temperature was perfect at last: cool and breezy, but the sun kept us from getting too cold. The views got better and better as the pines thinned out. To our east we could see what looked like salt flats down in a meadow. As we reached the top of our climb a whole new vista of peaks appeared in front of us. We kept hearing jets, possibly from the nearby China Lake base, and at one point a fighter plane screamed by close overhead. I hoped the pilot would do it again so I could get a better look, but no such luck.
The trail went downhill the rest of the way to our lunch spot and we gladly ambled along, happy to not be huffing and puffing and resting every 5 minutes. Lunch was at Diaz Creek, the next potential water, and since it was flowing well it saved us from having to go another mile down the trail. The creek flowed through a nice sage meadow with lots of dried up cowpies everywhere – par for the course even in a designated wilderness area. This is why we always filter our water out here, no matter where it comes from. Packman showed up after a while and we chatted as we did our chores. As we sat down to eat the sky clouded over and it got chilly. For a while we were worried about getting rained on. It threatened, dropping first a few ice pellets and then some sprinkles of rain. We ate quickly and got the heck out of there, reasoning that if it was going to rain we would stay warmest if we were already hiking.
As seems to happen, after we got our rain gear on the weather improved. We hiked for a while with our ponchos on but got clammy quickly as we headed into another climb. After last week’s storm we’re a little gunshy about the weather so it took us a while before we were ready to take them off. We climbed gradually again for the rest of the afternoon on our way to camp at 11k feet. After 5 miles we passed a spring flowing right over the trail and took the opportunity to do our laundry. The water was ice cold and with it getting chillier out we were glad to get moving again.
We made good time but dragged towards the end as we ran out of gas. We were watching for the Cottonwood Pass junction, which meant we only had a half mile to our stopping point. It seemed to take forever for us to reach it. After a little more climbing we arrived at Chicken Spring Lake, a small lake nestled in a bowl against some spectacular towering cliffs. It reminded me a lot of Chasm Lake in Rocky Mountain Nat’l Park at nearly the same altitude. Thankfully we weren’t quite above the treeline so we might be able to avoid lots of dew on our bags tomorrow morning. All the boulders scattered around the lake gave us a few options for finding a place out of the wind. These two things are important because this will likely be our coldest night yet, with the possible exception of our unusually chilly night near Mt. San Gorgonio before Big Bear. We found a nice spot in between a few boulders just large enough for our tent – which ought to add about 15 degrees of warmth around us. That might mean the difference between a restful night and one spent lying awake shivering. I’m wearing double layers tonight. This is by far the highest up I’ve ever camped and I’m interested to see if it affects my sleep. We already have less of an appetite despite a long day.
Tomorrow we will set ourselves up to climb Mt. Whitney the following day. Our hard work and 20 miles today means we only have 15 to do to the Whitney trail junction. From there we have a few options for camping depending on how far up the trail we want to go. We’re glad to have one more day to get a little acclimated. We did well today but feel pretty pooped now that we’re curled up in our bags. I’d hate to get sick or just not have the energy to get to the summit.
– Posted from the PCT
Location:Pct mile 751