July 11th 2009 - Ebett's Pass to Carson Pass

Transcriber's note: Tom again.

30 miles today! Yeah buddy. We're kickin' butt.

The trail was quite easy for the first 20 miles or so but it all went south just north of Blue Lake Road.

Running very low on food. As a result, I'm running low on energy. Almost passed out around 3:30 due to too much exercise and not enough chow. Stopped and made an emergency dinner.

Tori says I'm low on protein, so she gave me some cheese and a bunch of almonds. The chow got me back to normal and we hit the trail.

A vicious storm approached. Hiking up the southwest side of the Nipple (small boob shaped peak complete with nipple shaped summit) we donned our rain gear and tried to out-hike the storm. Didn't work.

We got hammered by high winds and stinging rain. It sucked but it was also a rewarding experience. sometimes you need life to suck ass to make you feel alive.

Thankfully the storm was over within 30 minutes and we were rewarded with late afternoon rays of sun for our trouble.

A traverse across a steep feature known as the Elephant's Back lie ahead. Our friend, Chris Willet described it as a sketchy bit of trail. We's sent our ice axes home at Tuolumne Meadows so it would not be smart for us to cross any steep snow slopes.

Upon arrival the the travers (????) we decided to break trail and scramble the low angled slopes on the north end of the ridge spur. It was an easy choice considering the consequences of a fall on the snow traverse would be severe injury or death. Plus, we were tired and didn't want to over exert ourselves.

Got free Cokes and Fig Newtons from the workers at an aid station set up in the parking lot at Carson Pass. Sweet! I like Coke!

~Tom