Each pass was a challenge. Each pass had snow on both the south and north sides. More snow was on the less sunny north side.

For Mather Pass I followed two other hikers who were climbing it. While climbing up the south side I was finally able to get to switchbacks that were relatively clear (on left side of picture below). As I approached the top the hiker in front of me leaned over and barfed on the trail. Eww! It was the altitude. We each react to it differently. Luckily I never had a problem that way.

As I was crossing a particularly difficult creek a rock got in the way of my shin.

Update: A don’t need a tattoo to commemorate my PCT hike. Instead I have a scar from this scrape that still remains.

From Justin’s Blog: Enough food to stay alive

Fording a stream, creek, or river is quite stressful. If you fall you could get hurt, you’ll definitely get soaked, and your pack will get soaked too. A soaked hiker is a cold hiker and you need to worry about hypothermia. Most are just little streams, but some are full rapids. Did I say they are STRESSFUL! Right now I’m camped beside a raging river which hopefully tomorrow morning will be less raging. My shoes are wet and they don’t have time to dry by morning. So I just assume they’ll be wet all day long.

Update: The next morning the raging river was still raging. Although I was told that in the morning the river would be lower, because the source above would be frozen, this was not the case. I should have crossed it the night before. Oh, and my shoes were frozen solid which made getting them on very difficult.

Can you see the trail? It’s covered in snow. So you carefully, very carefully, walk down the snow covered slope. Can you see the foot prints far far below? Mine will be shortly added to those.

I didn’t take any pictures of Glen Pass. After the pass this is a suspension bridge over the Wall river that was just rapids. I slept here with two other hikers, Ninja Tank and Random. The rapids were continual white-noise.

At the pass, the first ones are toward the PCT which is 3.5 miles below. Note: Bullfrog Lake is below with the clear edges and icy center.

Panoramic image

Individual images

The second one is towards the valley where I had to hike 5 miles to the trailhead and get a hitch 15 miles to Independence CA.

Heading off the trail to Independence CA for resupply via Bullfrog Lake trail. It was a 3.5 mile climb to Kearsarge Pass, then a 5 mile descent to the trailhead, and a 15 mile hitch to Independence CA.

This is just one of hundreds of indescribably beautiful views you see each day.