Our bodies regularly amazed us on this trip…despite feeling beat up every evening, we’d rise the next day, stretch things out, get the packs on and roll right into another 10-11 hour day. Even after yesterdays rough day, we were up before dawn, felt fresh and ready for more miles.
The tent interior was covered in frost when we woke up…we’d both washed socks the night before and hung them on our clothesline in the tent, but the temps got so cold and the extra moisture from the wet socks just ended up building a thick layer of frost in the tent. As was the usual routine, we let the tent freeze while eating breakfast, we shook out as much frost as possible and packed it up. Our laundry was safety pinned on our packs and we knew we’d have our spare socks dry by mid-afternoon.
As usual, our first hour of hiking was done all bundled up as if it was winter, and then once the sun was on us, the frost around the trail melted away and we were back to shorts. We were up over Glen Pass (11,978ft) before 9am and fortunately this time the descent was on a nicely graded, smooth trail that we flew down.
Our plan was to make today a short day and just get to the base of Forester Pass (13,200ft), as we didn’t think two passes in a single day was feasible for us, but we made good time up Bubb’s Creek Canyon towards Forester and found ourselves at our planned campsite by 1pm. Amazingly, we both felt great, and the temperature was about ten degrees cooler that day, so we decided to just keep on going.
We took a short break at treeline and filtered more water, and I unpacked the tent, letting it dry in the afternoon sun…then it was time to head for Forester. As we climbed towards the pass, a nearby forest fire started pumping smoke into the valley…our views began to be slightly obscured and I’m sure it didn’t help that we were huffing and puffing so much smoky air, but we were encouraged when we met another hiker going the other way who said the smoke hadn’t made it over Forester into the valley we were headed towards.
The fire wasn’t particularly big, but the smoke was starting to produce its own clouds which weren’t too far away. Back in college, I’d worked on some really big fires that produced so much smoke that they’d generate their own storm clouds and lightning…I think my pace quickened over Forester out of a little paranoia of not wanting to be so far above treeline if/when this fire started to do the same.
After a couple hours of climbing though we were leaving the smoke behind and were standing at Forester Pass looking south at clear blue sky. This was another pass where the trail was blasted into the mountainside and one would otherwise need ropes to get to this spot. Forester was another place I’d daydreamed about and spent lots of time on GoogleEarth looking at…it definitely lived up to my expectations…such a massive, high, barren place punctuated with deep blue lakes.
We kept plodding away downhill looking for a reasonable place to camp out of the wind…we weren’t going to make it to treeline by dark, but we found a nice spot next to a car sized boulder that provided plenty of wind protection. As the sun set though, the temperature sunk like a stone…most of the nights the outside temperature had dropped below freezing but in our tent the temperatures rarely went below the high 30’s. In the middle of the night I woke up and checked the temp, it was 25 degrees in our tent, not good for those with 45 degree rated sleeping bags. Becky slept better/warmer than I did, and I got through the evening wearing all my clothes inside my sleeping bag, but it wasn’t a restful night.
Rae Lakes from Glen Pass
on our way to Forester Pass
getting a little smoky from the forest fire
Clear weather once we reach the top of Forester!
Late in the day and searching for a campsite
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