We got into the small town of Agua Dulce yes­ter­day after­noon. This is a bit­ter­sweet stop. We are now over 2200 miles into the hike with 455 miles remain­ing. But most impor­tant­ly it is great to see the Saufley‘s again after a few years. This has always been one of the best stops on the trail. Recent­ly Jeff and Don­na decid­ed it was time for them to stop host­ing hik­ers. Pep­per and I will be the last hik­ers here. It’s the end of an era and when we walk out of here tomor­row it will be sad to close that door, but I am excit­ed for what lies ahead for Jeff and Don­na and for us on the trail.….
The last few days have been hot, def­i­nite­ly not sum­mer hot, but when you are com­ing out of win­ter and snow it has felt sum­mer hot. We have seen flow­ers bloom­ing, green hill­sides, trees bud­ding, and birds singing. It feels like spring is coming!

We made it to Tehachapi Wil­low Springs Road yes­ter­day evening to com­plete the next stretch. We have been on clear trail for the last the the days and have been able to do 30+ miles per day once again. We expect clear trail to con­tin­ue for at least the next 150 miles also. It is great to not have to nav­i­gate and pay close atten­tion to where you are head­ed all of the time.
We have been going through some of the dri­er stretch­es of the trail and have had a cou­ple of water­less stretch­es of near­ly 30 miles. It’s amaz­ing how fast the tran­si­tion from wet, high ele­va­tion Sier­ras to dry hap­pens on the trail.
About 560 miles to go now!

We made it through the High Sier­ras and to our first town stop since Mam­moth, about 250 miles ago. It has been a long and tough stretch and we are feel­ing skin­ny and tired. We are eat­ing a lot in town and retool­ing for the final 650 miles. We have now com­plet­ed 2010 miles.
Walk­er Pass is the first road cross­ing that we have had that is open year round since High­way 88 at Car­son Pass, just south of Lake Tahoe. It’s a long stretch through rugged terrain.
We have had good weath­er which has helped us main­tain good trav­el of about 18–25 miles per day while snow. We had bud­get­ed only be able to do 10 miles per day through this sec­tion. We did have two days of snow show­ers in the High Sier­ra which dropped a cou­ple of inch­es each time, just enough to either have dust on crust or dust on dirt and make things tricky. We also had two real­ly windy days. One day while going over Gab­bot Pass, at 12,400 feet (not a typ­i­cal PCT pass, which I will describe lat­er), Pep­per actu­al­ly got picked up and lift­ed off the ground and slammed into a rock from a wind gust. Oth­er gusts we would lit­er­al­ly have to stop mov­ing in order to hun­ker sheen and not be blown over. The pow­er of the wind is amazing.
Leav­ing Mam­moth we decid­ed to veer off the PCT route at Mono Creek, after Sil­ver Pass. We could­n’t resup­ply at VVR or Muir Trail Ranch, since they were closed, so there was no need to stay low through there and go over the rel­a­tive­ly low Selden Pass (about 10,500 feet). We decid­ed to do a com­bi­na­tion of the Sier­ra High Route and our own route over 5 pass­es (Gab­bot Pass, Italy Pass, Royce Pass, Pup­pet Pass, and Alpine Col) and recon­nect with the PCT at Evo­lu­tion Lake. We then fol­lowed the PCT route over Muir, Math­er, Pin­chot, Glen, and Forester Pass. It was def­i­nite­ly a chal­leng­ing mix of ter­rain and con­di­tions with some ski moun­taineer­ing involved. The snow con­di­tions were so dif­fer­ent than a spring snow­pack so often times we were wal­low­ing in two feet of uncon­sol­i­dat­ed snow and oth­er times we were scram­bling up or down rocks and talus in our ski boots. It is a relief to have got­ten through these high pass­es before the next big storm. I wor­ry about some of the ear­ly sea­son snow lay­ers we have seen that could cause major insta­bil­i­ty once the next big storm comes in.
I’ll wrap up this update with some­thing else amaz­ing: we saw our first oth­er peo­ple on the trail since Sno­qualmie Pass area in Wash­ing­ton. We saw an overnight hik­er and a cou­ple that was day hik­ing about 5 miles north of Walk­er Pass, which would be about mile 2005 for us. Con­sid­er­ing Sno­qualmie Pass was about mile 250, it had been about 1750 miles with see­ing any­body on the trail, or rough­ly 2/3 of the total mileage!

We made it to Mam­moth yes­ter­day. This was a big mile­stone that we have been dream­ing about for a long time. We have good friends here that we have want­ed to catch up with and it is also the offi­cial start of the High Sier­ra sec­tion. We have been look­ing for­ward to this sec­tion for a long time. It is one of the last big hur­dles for the hike and a remote stretch with few resup­ply options, espe­cial­ly in the win­ter. It looks like we might have the weath­er win­dow that we have been hop­ing for.
About 1760 miles com­plet­ed and about 900 remain­ing. We head into the High Sier­ra today!

We made it to High­way 108 today for our resup­ply. 1018 miles to go now. Almost under a thou­sand! The ski­ing has been vari­able with con­di­tions chang­ing by the minute. It looks like we have a good weath­er win­dow to con­tin­ue into the High Sier­ras. Onward into Yosemite tomorrow!

We made it to Echo Sum­mit this evening, under 1100 miles to go. It was an inter­est­ing stretch as this it’s my home turf and I have hiked and skied this stretch count­less times. How­ev­er this was or first stretch ski­ing on this trip. We made good time in com­plet­ing the sec­tion in two and a half days, includ­ing two 25 mile days. The ski­ing has been rel­a­tive­ly effi­cient but has also had moments of com­plete mis­ery. It has been tough on the burned out sec­tions where the snow pack is dwin­dling to maneu­ver and con­nect the snow tongues. In these areas I dream of my snow­shoes and bowl­ing between dry trail and snow as if it does­n’t mat­ter. This morn­ing Pep­per had a bind­ing mal­func­tion too and could­n’t get it into tour­ing mode. It froze up after we walked across a creek in our skis and then had to spend twen­ty min­utes bik­ing water to de-ice the bind­ing. Indeed a com­bi­na­tion of mis­ery and glo­ry. The glo­ry being some nice corn turns and cov­er­ing about a mile and a half in about ten minutes.
We con­tin­ue south in the morning.

We are about 80 miles short of the halfway point now. Things are going well and we are heal­ing up and tak­ing a few days off for Christ­mas. We should be back out on the trail head­ing south the after­noon of the 28th if all goes as planned.

Now since it is Christ­mas and we are all in the hol­i­day spir­it, I will do a lit­tle 12 Days of Christ­mas style halfway recap on some of the biggest dif­fer­ences between win­ter and sum­mer hik­ing that I am thank­ful for.….….

On the First Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me a beau­ti­ful coat­ing of snow hang­ing on every tree.

On the Sec­ond Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me a mos­qui­to-less Ore­gon and a beau­ti­ful coat­ing of snow on every tree.

On the Third Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me boun­ti­ful, clear, cold water, a mos­qui­to-less Ore­gon, and a beau­ti­ful coat­ing of snow on every tree.

On the Fourth Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me a few miles of clear trail, boun­ti­ful, clear, cold water, a mos­qui­to-less Ore­gon, and a beau­ti­ful coat­ing of snow on every tree.

On the Fifth Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me a sun­ny day, a few miles of clear trail, boun­ti­ful, clear, cold water, a mos­qui­to-less Ore­gon, and a beau­ti­ful coat­ing of snow on every tree.

On the Sixth Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me no for­est fires or fire reroutes, a sun­ny day, a few miles of clear trail, boun­ti­ful, clear, cold water, a mos­qui­to-less Ore­gon, and a beau­ti­ful coat­ing of snow on every tree.

On the Sev­enth Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me cheap­er win­ter motel rates, no for­est fires or fire reroutes, a sun­ny day, a few miles of clear trail, boun­ti­ful, clear, cold water, a mos­qui­to-less Ore­gon, and a beau­ti­ful coat­ing of snow on every tree.

On the Eighth Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me 50 degree rainy days at Castel­la and Seiad Val­ley (instead of the 100+ degrees in the sum­mer), cheap­er win­ter motel rates, no for­est fires or fire reroutes, a sun­ny day, a few miles of clear trail, boun­ti­ful, clear, cold water, a mos­qui­to-less Ore­gon, and a beau­ti­ful coat­ing of snow on every tree.

On the Ninth Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me hard­ly any­body in the back­coun­try, 50 degree rainy days at Castel­la and Seiad Val­ley (instead of the 100+ degrees in the sum­mer), cheap­er win­ter motel rates, no for­est fires or fire reroutes, a sun­ny day, a few miles of clear trail, boun­ti­ful, clear, cold water, a mos­qui­to-less Ore­gon, and a beau­ti­ful coat­ing of snow on every tree.

On the Tenth Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me ani­mal tracks in the snow to know the wildlife that is near­by and using the trail cor­ri­dor, hard­ly any­body in the back­coun­try, 50 degree rainy days at Castel­la and Seiad Val­ley (instead of the 100+ degrees in the sum­mer), cheap­er win­ter motel rates, no for­est fires or fire reroutes, a sun­ny day, a few miles of clear trail, boun­ti­ful, clear, cold water, a mos­qui­to-less Ore­gon, and a beau­ti­ful coat­ing of snow on every tree.

On the Eleventh Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me cheese that isn’t sweaty from the warm tem­per­a­tures, ani­mal tracks in the snow to know the wildlife that is near­by and using the trail cor­ri­dor, hard­ly any­body in the back­coun­try, 50 degree rainy days at Castel­la and Seiad Val­ley (instead of the 100+ degrees in the sum­mer), cheap­er win­ter motel rates, no for­est fires or fire reroutes, a sun­ny day, a few miles of clear trail, boun­ti­ful, clear, cold water, a mos­qui­to-less Ore­gon, and a beau­ti­ful coat­ing of snow on every tree.

On the Twelfth Day of Christ­mas the PCT sent to me an amaz­ing and sup­port­ive trail com­mu­ni­ty and all the rest of the stuff!

Here’s the link to some pic­tures from the last stretch from Ash­land, OR to Bur­ney, CA:

https://www.facebook.com/justin.lichter.5/media_set?set=a.427590940725749&type=1&pnref=story

Also, I have been updat­ing our loca­tion every 3–4 days in between towns so remem­ber you can check that here:

https://share.delorme.com/JustinLichter

We made it to Castel­la in the rain around 8pm tonight (about 1160 miles in now). It’s been a typ­i­cal stretch with snow or rain every day. The weath­er fore­casts were only call­ing for 1–3 inch­es each day and night, but things changed a lit­tle last night when we woke up this morn­ing to 1–2 get off fresh snow. We were get­ting up every two hours to clear off and shov­el out the tarp. It was was pret­ty slow going and slog­ging through deep snow for most of the day today until we start­ed descend­ing into Castel­la. Snow lev­els were pret­ty low with this storm as there is snow down around 3500 feet now.

We made it to Etna, about 1060 miles into the hike. There had been a lot of talk about the storm that came through this past week. It did rain a bunch and was windy, and dropped a bit of snow up high, but all in all I don’t think this storm was any worse than a cou­ple of oth­er storms we have already been through. Grant­ed I was glad it was over because we had a beau­ti­ful sun­ny day today and had some fan­tas­tic views in the Mar­ble Mountains.
We did unex­pect­ed­ly join the polar bear club on the last stretch as a cou­ple of the bridges had been burned from fires this sum­mer. We had to ford the swollen creek and both took unex­pect­ed swins at 7:30 in the morn­ing. It was def­i­nite­ly a lit­tle chilly but no harm done.
Onwards tomor­row as we are hop­ing to get in one or two more sec­tions before tak­ing a cou­ple of days off over Christmas.