May 30
Mileage 14 (6.5 on the PCT plus 7.5 on the Kearsarge pass trail)
Mile 789 to mile 795.5

We wake up at 5:30 to pack up for the 6:15 bus that will take me to Bishop for my box and everyone else to Independence, where they can hitch to the trail. I feel like I barely slept- it never cooled down in our hotel room at night, despite having the window open. The thick warm desert air kept me tossing and turning, waking to the light pollution outside the window thinking is it time to hike? Is it time to hike?

In Independance I watch everyone get off the bus and head towards the road that leads to the trailhead. Assuming they get a ride, they’ll be on the trail in no time, whereas I have to ride the bus another half hour to Bishop, wait for the post office to open at 9, pack my resupply and then hitch the 40 or so miles back to Independence. And then up the winding road to the onion valley trailhead. We’d talked of hiking only 18 miles today, but I have no idea what the pass is like. The pass of the day is Glen pass, after I climb back up and over Kearsarge. Glen pass is, according to Yogi, the sketchiest pass on the PCT. The north side is unforgivingly steep and icy, and difficult to descend even later in the season. And, according to the bloggers ahead of us, Glen pass is currently completely socked in snow.

So I’ll be behind my friends, going over the sketchiest pass in the sierras, alone.

I don’t want to think about it.

I do all my errands and make it back to Independence by 11, via a slow series of hitches. Then a truckload of nice new-agey dudes from San Diego shuttles me the rest of the way to the trailhead- they’re hiking in about a mile to camp at a lake. They tell me about the magical bristlecone pines in the white mountains, way up above everything, where there is no water. At the trailhead there’s a cluster of dirty hikers and my heart soars- but it’s not my friends, just people who look like my friends. I ask after the crew.

“Yeah we saw them here, about three hours ago,” says Brainstorm, who is nice. I haven’t seen him since the Saufley’s. Maybe he’ll hike with me, over the pass? But no, he’s headed into Independence, for a zero.

So it’s noon, and I’m three hours behind my friends. Ah, fuck.

The climb up Kearsarge is not too bad. I stop at the top to eat some food and then push on, and soon I’m 1.5 miles from the top of Glen pass. A nice older hiker named Raggety Man urges me not to go on.

“I’m camping here,” he says. “You should do the pass in the morning, when it’s frozen.”

“My understanding is that it’s best to do this pass in the afternoon,” I say. “When the snow is softer and not so icy.”

I leave Raggety Man and push up the granite switchbacks, which before long are completely obscured in snow. Then I’m scrambling up the rocky parts of the mountain, following what I take to be the paths of the hikers before me- smooshed dirt, crumbled rock. I’m feeling the altitude, and my anxiety mounts as I near the summit. If the trail is this obscured on the south side, what will the north side be like? I wish I wasn’t by myself. I give myself pep talks as I work my way up. It’s only snow, I say aloud. It’s only rock. It’s only snow, it’s only rock.

At the top I pause for a drink of water and then I head down. The trail is there for a minute, and then it’s just… gone. Underneath the smooth white snow. The smooth white snow that slopes down, unbroken, to the frozen lake far below. I survey my kingdom. In the distance, at a lower elevation, I can see Rae lakes, apparently snow free. My first destination. But how to get there?

I can see the footprints of hikers heading out, across the slope. I can see the smooth tracks where people went glissading, accidentaly or on purpose I don’t know. I follow one of these sets of tracks- the snow is soft enough to not be slippery, but firm enough to hold my weight. I don’t let myself look down.

And then the tracks end.

The rest of the afternoon looks like this: ease my way down the slope, follow a set of tracks, posthole, slide on my butt, pick my way down a pile of loose rocks, repeat process. The whole time I feel as though I am facing my own death. I wish so badly that I wasn’t alone.

I give myself more pep talks. You can do it Carrot, I say. You can do it.

I reach the bottom of the slope at 6 p.m. 6 hours on the trail and I’ve gone ten miles. I want to cry as I posthole through the soft, deep snow towards Rae Lakes, but I won’t let myself. The trail comes and goes, playing hide and seek beneath the white.

You can do it, Carrot, I say.

At Rae Lakes I pass a couple of day hikers. They’ve got their big tent set up, their snow shoes and ice axes spread across the ground.

“Was that you we saw, coming down from the pass?” They say. They look at my trail runners and running shorts.

“Yeah,” I say.

“That’s an awfully small pack,” they say. My pack feels so heavy today- I’ve got 5 days worth of food in there.

I trudge on, grateful for the ego boost. At dusk I’m still 5 miles from mile 800, our agreed-upon campsite. I don’t want to night-hike alone, and I’m exhausted. I set up camp next to Arrowhead lake, feeling super lonely. I toy with the possibility that I won’t catch my friends until Mammoth Lakes. That I’ll hike this entire section alone, over all of the sketcky passes.

I eat trail mix and potato chips for dinner, to tired to make anything else. I don’t want to think about it.

Photos on instagram.