Day 85-86: Ebbetts Pass

June 28-29; Mile 1031-1069

Day 85

The trail began as a gentle dirt track, and my legs sped up to the pace I’d been accustomed to hiking in Washington. It felt good to hike fast again. I passed fluttering fields of balsamroot* about to burst forth. (*it wasn’t actually balsamroot, but that’s what I wrote in my journal, and the alliteration was nicer this way). I spent the day admiring all the rock formations along the ridge lines, many of them like great fortresses standing guard above the valleys.

I paused to let a hiker by, and it turned out to be Zelda! We chatted for a while as we hiked up the hill together, and she told me where her group was planning to stop for lunch. At the saddle the wind was constant and fierce, and so we all pushed on to a lake down below.

The afternoon was filled with waterfalls, rocky cliffs, and snow patches. The lingering stretches of slush would appear every hour or two, but they were no problem to cross. At one of the waterfalls I dunked my head into the clear pool at its base to cool down.

I passed a peak with an American flag fluttering at its summit, and then I ran into a couple I hadn’t seen since the desert. We’d met on the long descent from San Jacinto; they were flipping this section since they’d had to get off trail for a family emergency. We stopped to chat briefly, but the mosquitos were incessant, and so we parted ways once more.

I passed across the road at Ebbetts Pass and thought about how the passes had changed from high mountain aeries with long snow-filled descents to this: a paved road in the middle of the woods. The trail often led down to the pass instead of up. The High Sierras were already fading into distant memory.

I made it to camp before 6 after hiking 22 miles. The gentle terrain, the lack of heat, and the lighter pack had all helped tremendously. Folks continued to show up, and we ended up all eating dinner together in a massive circle of thru-hikers. Two ladies out for a short trip watched, bemused, and asked us several questions before taking our picture.

Day 86

I left camp before 7 the next morning and walked along several exposed hillsides bursting with color. Yellow flowers dominates, but in the shadier stretches I spotted larkspur, columbine, and lupine.

I descended into a wooded section, the wind whining along the ridge above. The trail had a few short climbs, but for the most part it was gently rolling. I came across a massive boulder with a flat top around 11 and paused for a snack break – which ended up becoming my lunch break since I was too comfortable to budge.

The trail passed a road where it disappeared for a while. I checked and rechecked my map, and then realized that it had cut back sharply instead of continuing over a snow patch. Once back on trail, I began to climb up to wide open vistas – and howling wind. I was reminded of the stretch heading into Tehachapi as I crossed a saddle and had to brace myself against the onslaught.

Blue lakes glittered below, and finally the trail wound around to the leeward side of the ridge. I’d been considering staying at Lost Lake or continuing on – it would only be about 16 miles that day – but the water looked so inviting from above that I decided to end my day at 4pm and relax by the shore.

I soaked my feet in the cold water and washed my legs a bit. Folks from the Blue Crew joined a while later, and I waved to them before getting into my tent. The wind came in waves off the lake and pummeled the side of my tent. It was a long, restless night full of flinging dirt and rattling nylon.