Sonora

Day 87 - June 22

Before getting off trail to resupply at Sonora Pass we faced a 10,000 feet climb.  The volcanic surroundings were beautiful. The white of the snow made a deep contrast to the dark reddish purple scree and as we slowly traversed up the steep snowy mountainside more and more rows of white-toped mountains began to peak over the horizons. At the top we were left with breath-taking scenery but I was happy to see the mountains ahead didn’t seem as high or as white. As beautiful as they are in the distance, it’s a whole other story walking through them.

In short, I was done with snow.

We’d faced

Red snow, blue snow, old snow, new snow

Crusty, icy, slippery or freshly falling

Snow drifts, snow bridges, snow patches

Cornices, icicles, snowy lakes and rivers

Snow that glitters in the sunlight

and dirty old snow patches

Suncups and post-holing snow where you sink down to your knees or worse

snow snow snow!

No! No! No!

no more snow, please!

And we haven’t even done any glacier walking! But we did have some nasty suncups on the way down the mountain. But we got a hitch immediately from Sonora Pass, enjoyed a yummy meal at Kennedy Meadows North courtesy of Auntie Kathy & then got a ride back to Sonora Pass from a friendly woman who worked at the resort and is planning to climb Mt. Whitney in July (a much better month to do it than June!).  There we camped with Kurt – whose new trail name is Rogue – and dreamt of a snow-free trail.