Day 55

Mile 924.4 to mile 937.3

PCT Miles: 12.9 (20.6km)

Total Miles: 937.3 (1499.7km)

I had a challenging mission for today: go over two passes on a single day. The fact that the temperature during the night has not been going down below freezing isn’t going to help: from the moment I started hiking around 6am, the snow was already slushy.

The first pass (Island Pass) was the easiest pass so far. You barely notice that it’s a pass. It was quite tiring though because of all the slushy snow. After that, I “rushed” to the next pass: it took me around 5 hours to hike 6 miles, but I finally reached the Donohue Pass late in the afternoon! Lots of slushy snow and no need for any snow gear. Going over Donohue Pass means that now I am in the Yosemite National Park 🏞️!

It’s funny how things become normal. Wearing wet shoes in the morning (good thing they don’t freeze anymore), crossing rivers knee-deep with a 15kg backpack, stopping during the day to dry your tent and sleeping bag. Today I have the feeling that I could keep hiking forever!

Happy with my two passes achievement, I stopped early in the day, around 4:20pm. I cooked dinner and did all my chores earlier than normal and now it’s 5:40pm. I’ll have some rare spare time between writing Polarsteps and going to bed!

When I was cooking dinner, two very polite park rangers came by to check my PCT permit. It’s the first time that I get checked ✅.