Day 4: The Nero Day...back to the PCT

Oh trail towns! How I love thee! It was so nice to wake-up this morning and head down to a coffee shop rather than heat up a package of Quaker Oats. I’ve decided that a cup of coffee served in a nice big cup is better than anything else in the world. It just tastes so good! Plus The Espresso Bar was one of those coffee shops that you just want to sit in for hours...and hours we did sit! In true hiker form we had been up for sometime and hoped that we could be out looking for a hitch back to the trail before noon. Unfortunately for us the local sport shops didn’t have the same mindset. Carter needed to fix her trekking poles, which kept falling out and purchase a fleece since she had accidentally left her fleece in the back of our hitch. I needed a new bite valve for my bladder and a pair of gaiters. The outfitter store listed on the door that it would open at 8 but we sat outside the shop for almost 2 hours before the doors opened. While we sat I stressed about the snow on Mt. Whitney and by the time the store was opened I had received my trail name, Danger Mouse. The one good thing that came out of our "camp out" in town was that we secured a ride from Tom the “trail Angel” back to the trail head. Again, as we headed back up the white knuckle road to the trail head, I had a bit of sweaty palm issue and a wave a nausea as we made some of the final turns. Tom seemed to enjoy my height fright and took the turns a bit fast for my liking. At the top we all exchanged emails and promised to send pictures.

Back tracking is never fun but it occasionally has to be done. We headed back to the Cottonwood Pass where knew we could pick the PCT back up. The terrain was pretty steady for most of the day and after about 3 hours we found ourselves at our very first snow patch! At the next big trail marker we got a big confused as there was a sign pointing to Rock Creek Trail off to the right. According to the map and to Carter’s calculations we were not supposed to be crossing this particular junction so soon. Of course I simply thought we were amazing and could walk at the speed of light, but Carter stood her ground. After several minutes debating and a couple of wandering strolls down both trails, we spotted 2 girls. They confirmed Carter’s earlier thoughts that no we had not crossed Rock Creek Trail. Chicken Spring Lake, a destination on our map, was just over the ridge.

This small hiccup in the marking of the trail signs was not the first of the day. It seems that the PCT is marked only sporadically and not necessarily with all the trail markers listed in the Atlas or the PCT map. We learned that the signs pointing to specific destinations are sometimes a bit off the trail and depending on what particular National or State forest a hiker happens to be in depends on the signage for the PCT.

With the trail confusion settled, we headed for Chicken Spring Lake. Soon enough we found the high Sierra glacial cirque lake and immediately stripped down to our swimming attire. The water was chilling to the bone! Just putting my toes in made my skin turn to goosebumps, but on the count of 3 we both dove into the icy water. While the chipmunks ran circles around us we let the sun’s heat dry our freezing bodies.

As the sun began to shift it’s warm rays we decided dinner was in order. Fighting off the chipmunks from stealing items from our packs was a bit of a challenge while cooking dinner, but we were successful in the end. Mmm Mountian House Vegetable Ginger StirFry!

After dinner we packed up all of our cooking supplies and decided to walk another 2.5 miles to the Seasonal Spring. The light was still pretty decent and an evening stroll does wonders for the day's mileage. We walked up and above the lake and continued up and up as the sun began its descent in the West. The views of the surrounding mountains were incredible as the sun reflected off of the white limestone rocks filling the valleys below with a warm red glow.

Just as the sun was begining its final goodbyes, we found the spring. Just before “lights off” we set up our tent and crawled inside to watch the sky turn from red to indigo.