(excluding the trail closure)
Another day of trail obstacles! During the first 4 miles I encountered snow – hard, icy, and sloped. It was after completing it, that I again learned that many other hikers were continuing to road walk around this section. I can see why!
At one point, there was (what I determined to be) an impassable mass of snow. It was a large bulge of hard snow that had no safe place to cross – I could go above it to go around, but if I slipped, I would be on that patch of snow. I chose to go below it, and worked my way down ~40′ through the steep incline’s loose dirt and rock to a section of the trail I saw below.
A small section of the trail is closed through here due to an endangered species’ habitat, and Tom drove me to a connector trail to bypass the closure. Where the connector trail met the PCT, I faced additional challenges – two wide water crossings. The first, I mistakenly chose to scoot across a very splintery log. I just get too nervous to walk across them!
But after all of this, I finally made to mile 400!!!
