Mile 1063 to 1041

Snowy Mountains

Although the stars finally make an appearance late in the night, in the morning everything is still wet. The rain soaked the tent on the outside and the condensation did the same for the inside. I will need to find time to dry everything in the sun, but l can’t wait for that now. Everything gets packed up wet. I feel luckier than “7”, a northbound thru-hiker who managed to set his tent in a depression, which is now a fairly decent sized pond.

Today our goal is another 20 miler. We are trying to position ourselves for yet another 20 on Monday, and then an early arrival on Tuesday at highway 108. We hope to meet my wife Terri and son Daniel to help us resupply. The challenge is that there is a lot of snow before the highway. We want to camp as close as we can, but not in the snow.

Snow Traverse

We have increasing snow traverses on the north side of the mountains. We cross Highway 4, which is the same highway our cabin is on, about an hour to the west. Before the flip, I had envisioned getting picked up here and taken to our cabin for some R&R. Given the crazy snow at Sonora Pass (108), we actually need more help there.

Because we are about half way from where we jumped to Chester, we are starting to see Northbound hikers we know that pushed through – Rymond, Tinkers, Oatmeal, Whiskers, and more. It is fun to see them and share stories, but it significantly slows us down.

We camp by Asa lake. The mosquitoes are not as bad as feared, and we are hoping for a reprieve from the thundershowers.

Crossing Highway 4