Start point
About three miles from the Cottonwood Pass trailhead
End point
Snow field at mile 754.2
Miles hiked
~3 on the PCT, 4 on Cottonwood Pass, 3 mile road walk
Wilderness area
Inyo National Forest
Golden Trout Wilderness
The day on trail
We met at 5:25 am at Alabama Hills Cafe. I picked up a dozen cookies on a rumor we might be able to coerce construction workers into giving us a ride up the 13 mile closed road.
We got to Lavender Ranch around 6 am. Some of us laid out our foam sleeping pads to sit on. Some of us went into the ranch to get some water. We mostly hung out waiting for workers to get there. Tree, German Cowboy, and another guy came by and started the road walk on their own.
Around 7:10, a guy driving a truck with a road sweeping trailer came by. Psyche and Crispy immediately descended upon his door with the box of cookies when he stopped at the gate.
We got really lucky. He gave us, and our packs, a ride. The cab filled up, so I was in the bed with the packs.
We soon came upon the three other hikers and the driver said if they could fit, they could ride. We all squeezed in the truck bed. At one point, the wind snatched German Cowboy’s hat off his head. He got superbly lucky as it got caught on the trailer, rather than all the way to the road. He tapped on the window of the cab, because he was sitting next to it, so the driver could stop and he could get his cap.
The driver dropped us off about three miles from the trailhead, which was great. Saving a 10 mile road walk with 6,000’ of elevation gain is always nice. I prefer to keep my legs for trail rather than roads!
We went up Cottonwood Pass, as it didn’t have a major water crossing like our initial way down at Trail Pass. All the snow bridges for the Trail Pass crossings had melted out, and we wanted to get as far as possible in the time we had.
Pretty quickly, we came upon this hut/cabin thing.
We peeked inside. There are so many quirky things out here. One thing that’s hard to see is how low it is. The doorframe is so low that if you’re over 5’2”, you’ll need to stoop to get in. The beams on the ceiling would knock my head if I wasn’t careful.
Moving on, we were trying to make as much time as we could, as the sun was out and snow was softening.
I couldn’t get enough of the views.
Propeller tried some route finding and ended up taking us up a really sketchy snowbank with a ridge of snow at the top. The trail was just over the ridge.
We made it, despite the sketchiness. And there it was…we were back on the PCT!
We took a brief break then continued on.
I really enjoyed the features of the landscape.
One thing you will see with snow that gets older is watermelon snow. It’s snow that contains an alpine algae that turns it pink.
Yes. Algae in the mountains.
The trio we met earlier passed us in the early afternoon. They took Trail Pass up, so they were a couple miles behind us with a faster pace, and the route finding around that ridge set us further back.
We were all running out of steam pretty quickly. The slushiness of the snow was sapping our energy and we were getting anxious to rest. We decided as a group to take the next campsite we found and start early, because we could make up time lost today on firmer snow tomorrow.
We found a beautiful snow field with a thawing out stream for water, and set up.
This was my first time camping on snow! I was really excited to try it out!
Instead of staking out your tent how you normally would, in the ground, you dig a small trench, wrap your guyline halfway down the stake, and bury it in the snow. Then the snow freezes around the stake and you have a firm anchor. It’s called a dead man’s drop because it resembles burying a body.
Yeah. It works marvelously. I had no issues with my tent coming up, even with the winds that would hit later.
Seriously. Look at that textbook pitch. There are few things as gratifying as a good tent pitch, where you know you have everything nice and taut and nothing’s moving until you make it.
We went to bed early, since we’d be up early. We decided on a departure time of 3:30 am because we’d have a really strong freeze overnight and the following day was predicted to be cloudy, which would keep the snow firm well into the day.