June 22 - Forester Pass

End: on a cliff next to a creek
Daily: 13.6
Total: 788.3

Long day! We woke up in time to getout of camp by 6:15 and set off to get over Forester.

Forester was nowhere near as bad as I expected. We were 5 miles from the pass and we got up to the top at 9:10. We had made bets on what time we would get there, and I said 9:45. There was a little bit of straight up right under the pass, then a few switchbacks on real trail (which is becoming very rare now), then we had to traverse The Chute. That's the infamous stretch of snow with a near vertical snow chute below it. It took us all of 30 seconds. I think having spent some time climbing mountains in the Northwest has given Chris and me an advantage over most of the other people who have little sketchy snow experience.

Getting down wasn't bad either. We glisaded quite a bit of it, but what we couldn't glisade was pretty slow going - the snow was already soft.

Then we walked down this gorgeous valley alone Bubbs Creek (Bubbles had to swim in it). It was hard work. Piles of snow tend to accumulate on the trail, so you have to walk up a 5 foot tall lump of snow, then back down on the other side, then back up another one. I was getting pretty tired by the time we took a break at a campsite where Honeybuzz's dad (Seamus) had packed in food ang goodies (crazy!). We decided to go a mile farther and camp.

In that mile, I was so tired, and my knee hurt really bad, so I was slipping a lot on those snow piles. I slipped and hit my trekking pole, which broke. That really got to me. I know it's just stuff, but it felt like losing an arm or something. We just have so little stuff out here, and all of it is needed for something. I need them for stabilizing on snow and for fording rivers. Anyway, we finally made it to this campsite, found one of the very few spaces that isn't covered in snow, and cooked dinner. I felt way better than.

Kearsarde, restaurant food, showers and a bed tomorrow! Although I will miss the Sierra, even for a day. The view from this campsite looks like a painting of mountains. I can't believe it's real.