Start point
Snow field at mile 754.2
End point
Lavender Ranch
Miles hiked
8 miles on trail, 13 mile road walk
Wilderness area
Inyo National Forest
Golden Trout Wilderness
The day on trail
The weather turned last night.
We woke up to intermittent whiteout conditions at 2 am. We all struggled to meet up at 3:30am to start. When we finally gathered, I had the weather report pulled up. Today was slated for 4” of snow followed by three days of freezing rain.
It wasn’t safe. Fresh snow on ice is a recipe for avalanches. It also obscured any boot track, so hiking would be slower and more difficult. Most of all, freezing rain is incredibly dangerous as it will cause hypothermia quickly.
Had it been one day of inclement weather, we could’ve hunkered down and let the snow solidify with a thaw-freeze cycle. Even two days. But four days of this, minimum, was too much.
We turned around and worked out way out, starting around 4 am.
It was scary. My toes and fingers went numb. I left an over glove at the campsite. The wind snatched my tent off my tent poles while packing up. The wind filled my food bag, my backpack, and my tent with snow.
The good news is that I enjoyed snow camping! My dead man drops held great, and it wasn’t hard to dig them out. I was warm and comfy on the snow. I could snow camp, quite happily, without the blizzard conditions.
We hiked out in sub-freezing conditions. I wore my baselayer leggings under my rain leggings. I wore my wool gaiter, my puffer, and my rain coat. I had gloves and rain mittens. I had my wool beanie, my puffer hood, and my rain hood.
It was a slog. The powder hid suncups of ice, so walking was treacherous. On top of that, navigation was difficult with boot tracks being obscured by the fresh powder. We were lucky to be traveling at 1mph.
We saw Tree, from yesterday, had turned around from the rest of his group.
We took a short break at the hut, but moved on quickly when we got cold.
There were more people at the trailhead who were also bailing. We’d hoped the road would be open, like the worker who gave us a ride the day prior said it would be, but it was closed. The road being closed made sense. The weather knocked loose a lot of boulders which littered the road.
During the road walk down, when I got service, I contacted my friend and a trail angel, Lina. I asked, in a roundabout way, if she could put me up for a night. I was done with Lone Pine. She provided some resources to get public transit to where she could pick me up in Mammoth. With the promise of shelter, a shower, and laundry, I started figuring it out.
I could get a ride from another trail angel at 4:40 which would get me barely to the one bus at 5pm to Mammoth. It was about 2pm, I needed food, and I needed to get down another six miles.
I booked it. And made it.
We had a few other hikers ready to go: Andrew and Jess, Raspberry, and Danger Zone. We packed up and I got to the bus exactly at 5. I delayed the departure a few minutes.
The bus requires exact change, which I didn’t have. They took off and the driver called their central dispatch to run a credit card payment.
But I escaped Lone Pine.
I got to Mammoth and Lina picked me up. We got some groceries so I could cook, and went back. I started a pot of matzoh ball soup, ate a snack, showered, did laundry, and Lina and I caught up.
My goodness I slept well that night.