June 17, 2016 - My tent got very wet from some serious condensation, it was like it rained just inside my tent but that’s what you get from sleeping that close to a large water source in the mountains.
Started off the day with a climb up to Pinchot Pass. Hiked along this very fast moving creek coming off the mountain. One section is called the water slide as in low snow melt years you can actually slide down. This year a little too much water to ride the slide.
The hike getting up the final part of Pinchot was harder than I thought, got a little lost but I made it and was rewarded with a nice view.
As usual, Salty and myself were the first to the top. While we waited for the group we both decided to dry out our gear since everything got soaked from the heavy condensation last night. I made sure to anchor everything down since the wind was starting to pick up. Soon after we had our gear scattered around the pass a big swift wind came and blew part of Salty’s bivy up. With it being so light the wind caught it and went high up in the air. We watched it slowly head back south to where we came from in hopes it would fall to where we could get it. However, that didn’t happen and everyone coming from the south we asked if they had seen it but no. After awhile we realized it was gone so we all moved northward. I felt bad its going to be tough for Salty to avoid the bugs at night.
The hike down was a little harder, always seems to be the case when there is so much snow.
At the bottom I had several creek crossing until I made my climb up Mather Pass. They say doing 2 passes in a day can be hard and it sure was. Again got a little lost going through the snow field leading up to the switchbacks. Then even the switchbacks were covered in snow in parts so you had to go straight up the loose rocks. It seemed every group going up took a different route. At one point there was a person struggling to get up so a few had to go back down to help out.
I found the way down much harder as it was late in the day and the snow was very soft and slushy making it hard to get good traction. Did a few glissades and falling. I really struggled heading down and ended up being the last one into camp. I was so happy to get to camp because that was a tiring day. You would think I did 30+ miles but it ended up being less than 20, I can see why milage drops when you are hiking in the Sierras.
