Day 6 – 7/6/18
~13 miles
Upper Basin to Saddlerock Lake on Bishop Pass trail

Upon packing up in the morning, we spotted a pair of hikers in on the PCT. Since leaving Road’s End, we’ve seen no one except a few trail crew people camped about 6 miles in. We ended up seeing 28 people during our 5 miles on the PCT today.

I tried not to go on and on to Dan about it, and I’ll try not to say it too much here either, but holy moly things are so different than when I thru hiked in 2011. Not a patch of snow anywhere near Mather Pass. No endless snowfield approaching the pass, no terrifying cornice, no glissade down the back.

However, for me today, it was nearly Poop Your Pants Pass. Not because it was in anyway scary, but because I literally had to go, and there is nowhere to go when you’re up on a pass like that. I finally managed to find a shelf on the way down the switchbacks to duck off trail about 100ft and dig my hole. Disaster narrowly averted.

Back on trail, we walked along the beautifully sparkling Palisade Lakes (I had no idea it stayed high above them in the trees, I’d previously walked along the frozen lakeshore, occasionally jumping over a slightly melted out channel onto the frozen lake to bypass a rocky cliff).

At the end of the lakes we again diverged straight up some slabby/grassy cliffy stuff up to Cirque Pass. En route, I nearly stepped on a mama ptarmigan and her 4 baby chicks! They scurried away, as best ptarmigans can scurry. I tried to photo/video then without getting closer and further scaring them. When I gave up on getinrh a good photo and turned to leave, I discovered a 5th baby chick was on the other side of me. Poor thing was terrified and separated from the others! Hopefully they all reunited after I left.

The top of Cirque Pass turned out to be blissfully free of mosquitoes, and had a lovely slab for sitting, so we took a good long lunch break. While sitting there, two other hikers popped up over the pass! They were probably a hundred feet away and didn’t come over to us, but we waved. First off-trail hikers we saw!

Down to a lake, up to Potluck Pass (are you getting the pattern of this high route thing now?) was pretty fun, relatively easy moving with fun route finding up grassy ramps with occasional scrambling mixed in to gain the next shelf. At the top, we again saw the pair of hikers and talked to them this time, learning they were a father son pair out for a week, not on Roper’s High Route, but exploring the Sierra on their own. We were impressed, clearly these guys spent a lot of time here and knew what they were doing.

Our maps and Roper’s guide had a discrepancy from this point forward: Roper went down to Barrett Lakes and up over “easy” Knapsack Pass to Dusy Basin. The maps went to the lakes, but then up over an unnamed pass below Thunderbolt Peak (let’s call it Thunderbolt Pass) and over to Bishop Pass, where we have to exit for our resupply anyway. We had no info about Thunderbolt other than a line on the map.

The father and son were heading to Thunderbolt….but not dropping to the lake. No, they were staying high and traversing at ~12,200’. They also spoke of heading out tonight and having beers in Bishop.

Dan and I considered our various options and decided to be “adventurous” and go the same way as the others.

It took 2 hours to go 1.1 miles, traversing endless talus of every size from car sized boulders to loose crap, with an occasional tiny snowfield to bring relief. It was clearly not a time saver by any means, though the pass itself had a great view. We caught up to be the father in the last quarter mile of so, and found out they were from Wisconsin and were not at all familiar Sierra travelers. What?!? Oh well, the route worked, and we did feel adventurous, but that beer felt very far away. On the other side was some more talus that eventually gave way to somewhat easier terrain, but once again descended into mosquito hell.

We pushed on as fast as we could and eventually hit the trail over Bishop Pass.

Oh and we passed a dozen or so very dead deer right on the trail – avalanche?

We still had the camp or try to get to town decision to make, eventually deciding to just camp, about 3.5 miles from the trailhead. We hastily chose a mediocre campsite, complete with some toilet paper sticking out from a rock. I warned Dan not to move any of the rocks in that area when looking for a tent stake hold down. He picked one up anyway and got the lovely surprise of a tampon (complete with a plastic applicator nearby!). This is why I prefer off trail travel.

The mosquitoes were so apocalyptic, Dan cold soaked his dinner. After the sun set the wind picked up, flapping the tent incessantly. And being in such a high use area which sees so many bozos who probably don’t store food properly, we’re also bearanoid. Sure to be a great night’s sleep!