Day 90 (18 July) - Mile 996.42 - 1017.10

Dorothy Lake to Sonora Pass (Staying in Bridgeport, CA)

What an incredibly epic day!  It's day 90 on the trail, we hit the 1,000 mile marker, and we hiked 21 miles in one day...AMAZING!

I woke at 6:20 AM and was surprised Share Bear didn't wake me earlier. I quickly packed up my stuff and exited the tent and noticed Share Bear was still in her's. She finally exited and said it was too cold and windy at 6:00 AM to get up, so she slept in...I'm all for that.

Even with the sleeping in, we still managed to start hiking just after 8:00 AM. Salmon joined us for our morning picture:

Ready to hike.

At this point we don't know how far we will hike. We will either go 14 miles or 20.52...a decision will be made at lunch.  Either way we better get going.

View of Dorothy Lake as we hiked away

Just 10 minutes after our hike started we exited Yosemite National Park and entered Hoover Wilderness.  This is the point that we don't need to carry our bear canisters anymore. I was thinking that when we got here we would see a pile of canisters from people that was so sick of carrying them that they would just dump them here. I was quite tempted, but that would be "leaving a trace" so I guess I better carry it out to Sonora Pass like everyone else.

Leaving Yosemite National Park, entering Hoover Wilderness.

Onward we hiked on this beautiful PCT.

Cool trail.

Lake Harriet

We hiked on and Share Bear suddenly exclaimed, "Here we are!"  We knew that we were getting close, but the thought left my mind as my mind wandered on to other things. I looked down and we were there. A tear almost came to my eyes. It is hard to believe that I have hiked 1,000 miles, but here we were.

Proof I am standing at 1,000 mile point on PCT.

1,000 mile pose.

We stood around and contemplated the whole 1,000 mile thing and then realized we still have 1,670 miles left to go, so we better get hiking.

6 miles into the hike we came across this cool bridge crossing a unnamed creek:

Nifty bridge.

We stopped for lunch at the 9.5 mile point and discussed whether or not we should try for Sonora Pass. 

Contemplating how far to go.

Sonora Pass is still 11 miles from here and it was now 2:00 PM. After discussing we still didn't make up our mind. We decided to make it at least to a campsite 7 miles short and decide from there. So, we continued on.

Incredible scenery.

After lunch we had a huge climb. In the next 3 miles we have 1,535 feet to climb so up we went.

Self-portrait "Climbing high"

We came to the end of a really steep switchback and came to a decision. The actual trail switchbacked to the left, but there was a steeper trail that went right to where we needed to go. We decided to go for the steeper more direct route. This picture shows the switchback behind Share Bear:

Alternate route

This alternate route was STEEP.  When we were almost to the intersection of the actual trail there was a snowfield to cross. We have crossed many of these, but this one was legitimate and we both left our microspikes with Tim, so we had to cross with just our running shoes.  Luckily we both made it across safely, but it was silly for us to take  this alternate route with this unnecessary snow crossing, but we got here to the point faster.

Crazy, serious snow crossing.

Share Bear contemplating what we just crossed.

We made it to the top of the climb and was greeted by a sign pointing toward Sonora Pass, our possible goal for the day.

Sonora Pass this way.

At this point the trail became epic. A ridge walk looking out on incredible scenery in all directions. The next 8 miles into Sonora Pass is supposed to be like this.

Wow.

As we hiked Share Bear noticed a Jabba the Hut rock:

Jabba the Hut in a rock.

Amazing scenery.

We came to the last possible campsite 5 miles out from Sonora Pass. It was chilly and very windy. We knew if we stayed here it would be miserable, so we finally decided to continue on to Sonora Pass for the night. At 5:00 we were on a ridge and was able to get cell service to call Tim and let him know we were going to make it there tonight instead of tomorrow. He couldn't believe that we were going to hike over 20 miles today, but I told him we felt good and could do it. Him and Brad will be at the road at 7:00 PM...cool.

Now we just have to hike the 5 more miles. At this point we have come over 15 which is usually the end of the day for us. We hiked on and came to more snowfields we had to cross. This has got to be the most snow crossing we have had to do...blah.

Pretty hard snow crossing.

More snow crossings ahead.

We were finally making our way down and was feeling pretty good. Then, when we were about 2.25 miles from Sonora Pass, we came across more snow crossing. What the heck, and some of these were hard to cross and some we went around and that was really hard as well.

More snow crossings close to the end.

About 1 mile from the end Tim made an appearance. It's always nice when he hikes in to meet us. Unlike us, he was excited by the snowfields.

Tim hiking in snow.

At 7:30 PM we made it to Sonora Pass, 20.5 miles in one day, both of our new distance record.

We did it!

Oh, while hiking today we met Scott from Boston that hiked the JMT last year and decided to continue on from that point this year. We offered him a ride to town tonight, but he said he wasn't planning on leaving the trail. We said our good lucks and continued past him. Right when we got down, he was close behind out of breathe. He ran to catch us to take that ride after all.

We want to Bridgeport, ate burgers for dinner and went to the hotel room for showers and sleeping in a bed after an incredibly epic day on the Pacific Crest Trail. 

Our hotel room for the night.