Day 60: Donohue Pass

Miles hiked: 12.9

Mile Marker: 944.3

It’s absolutely freezing this morning. Luxy again holds up her frozen underwear. We pull ice sheets off of our tents. It’s a gray morning and my hands sting with the cold of the ice.

My tent is frozen. A sheet of ice is on my best can. Luxy can’t seem to attach her ice axe to her pack, and when she does and is putting the final touches on her pack, her bear can falls off and rolls down the hill.

This may not be Luxy’s day.

We get to walking later than we expected. At least the river we have to cross is lower than it was last night. Snow melts from the sun, so in the evening the rivers have a higher flow. We’re in the morning so the river is lower. Dry feet for us!

The glassy water reflects the mountain like a mirror. Mountains stand against a bright blue sky. We walk on for a bit and hit snow in the concave of the hill.

I hike on uphill for a while, then finally reach the pass. I look up and say, “Isn’t that the pass?”

I can’t believe this is it. There are still mountains higher than me on this same pass, so how is this the pass?

“You can hike up there if you want!” Savannah says.

“Tails, please don’t,” Luxy says. “Maybe Journey can go up there, but I like you. So please don’t.”

I still can’t believe this is the pass. A river snakes through the green valley beneath me. It’s still very pretty.

We travel down and walk through open meadows. We stop for lunch where we all set up our tents to dry.

Savannah is rushing to get to the post office to pick up a package, so her and Journey head that way while Luxy, Rafiki and I stay behind to finish packing up.

We find some marmots hiding from us by a rock.

A ranger stops us on our hike out.

“Are you Rafiki?” a ranger asks.

“I am,” Rafiki says. He was probably identified by his cowboy hat.

“I was told to ask you, Rafiki, what your poop plan is.” the ranger says.

“In the bear can,” Rafiki says.

This is a stupid inside joke that came from Savannah’s mom, but Rafiki has been waiting to be asked what his poop plan is by a ranger.

Where does your food go? In the bear can.

Where does the first aid kit go? In the bear can.

Where do your toiletries go? In the bear can.

What’s your poop plan? In the bear can.

The rest of the hike is a draggy one. None of us are particularly in the mood for hiking, and we have Yosemite to look forward to tomorrow.

Luxy yells at Rafiki and I to stop as we soak through the trees.

“I think we can go this way,” Luxy says. Her map is a bit more detailed than mine with the other roads but mine shows the icons hers is missing.

“Let’s do it,” I say. We take the fork in the road and shave off some time by walking the blue line.

We reach a road, run into Dad. I say goodbye to him then we race to the restaurant. It’s a little grill under a tent, and they’re out of vegetables, burger buns, soda… yeah. I get a chili cheese dog and some tasty potato wedges and some not so tasty orange juice.