Day 54 (27 June)

Miles 760.0 to 774.7. Rock Creek Camp to creek camp.

We wake up at 6am, BigBro and the rest of the trail family are still asleep. What a surprise, it is another bright sunshining day. As usually we pack all our stuff together within 35 minutes. I go down to the nearby creek to fill our water bottles - what a relief it is not having to filter the water anymore (some people still do it, bit we are willing to take a risk. The water looks so pristine!). I take some time to look for fish, especially trouts. After a short time I indeed discover a few of them and decide to buy some fishing gear in the next town. So all set and off we go.

After a mile or so we reach the bottom of the valley. Since we checked our PCT App with the maps (Guthooks), we already know what is coming next - a steep climb of about 2 miles.

We start climbing and cross a lot of Sequoia Trees and rocks. We are looking forward to reaching the top and then having breakfast and enjoying the silent scenery.

When we arrive though, we realize we are not alone. A group of about 25 Asian section hikers have had the same idea and are also having breakfast there. Well that is not was we imagined it to be, but nevertheless, we decide to eat there. We find a spot some meters away from the crowd and still enjoy the scenery.
Suddenly we spot a cheeky chipmunk, which does not fear humans at all. We share some peanuts from our trail mix with this little fella and are amused how it eats them with both of its tiny hands.
Soon the Asian group is heading out and so are we a couple of minutes later.
What follows is a fairly easy downhill part where we first meet a few people finishing the John Muir Trail or JMT in hikerish. The John Muir Trail and the PCT share a section of about 180 miles, starting in a few miles.
For lunch we stop at a beautiful meadow, it is actually the junction to the famous Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in Continental Northern America (except of the Denali Mountain in Alaska). Mount Whitney is actually not part of the PCT, although a lot of PCT hikers climb it anyways. We already decided a few weeks ago, that we are not doing Whitney as we have a rather tough time schedule to reach Tuolumne Meadows in mid of July, because we will leave the trail for our short trip to Switzerland and France to attend my friend Fabian’s 30th Birthday surprise party and the wedding of our friends Carolina and Maurito (ok it is actually Maurus, but as they are moving to Quito, Ecuador, soon the name fits him even better).
Also Whitney has not the same importance to us than to American people. It is high, but to be honest not very very high. Of course that is something you should never tell Americans…:)

Anyway, as we have lunch we have our first encounters of a) a massive mosquito attack (as Simon would say “those bloody mozzies!”) and b) of a Marmot. It is funny how chubby those animals are and how slowly they move. One would even think they are not the smartest animals on the planet, but still somehow they must have managed to escape the survival of the fittest law…

After lunch we start hiking again and are now officially on the JMT. It is now another steep and long climb on to one of our so called fuckers. But now the landscape starts to change and we feel like having entered the high sierras. We pass two gorgeous green meadows and cross some small creeks and are soon on top of the fucker. Wow, what a scenery! Big mountains in the background, green grass everywhere and a terrific small lake in the middle of the green. We hike a bit off trail to get to this lake and soak our feet in the ice cold water.

From here it is only 3 more miles to our campsite which is next to a raging river and actually something like the base camp to the highest pass on the JMT/PCT - the Forester pass. But this pass is something for the next day, enough hiking for today. We pitch our tent next to approx 2 billions of mosquitoes and hide inside the shelter of our bug save tent as quickly as possible.
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Tomorrow we are going to climb our first real pass on the PCT and it is going to be great, no sorry, amazing!