And then the guys helping the HAPE victim had their own trouble:
(This also from the
Trail Journal entry for 6/17/2010):
"Boston & Cubby's 2010 Pacific Crest Trail Journal"
10-Spot and Turbo made it into town at 8:30pm. We thought that they would most likely come in tomorrow.
They ended up hiking 28 miles today to get all the way here. They hiked from Meadow Junction, south of the confluence of the Kern River and Tyndall Creek, up to Forester Pass, over Forester Pass, down Bubb's Creek, to Bullfrog Lake, up to Kearsarge Pass and down to Onion Valley Trailhead. They then hitched a ride into town.
They had an epic of their own today.
They left from camp this morning from the location of Half-Ounce's evacuation. When they had hiked down to this location with Half-Ounce the day before, they were off trail and bushwhacking. This morning, they located trail and hiked out on it. The trail crossed Tyndall Creek at the confluence of the Kern River.
At this crossing the water was big. Very big. They attempted to cross on a huge fallen tree. The fallen tree's roots were on the far end of the tree. The tree was glazed over with ice. 10-Spot reached the far end first. Between the glaze of ice and the obstacle of a vertical wall of uprooted roots, there was an enhanced degree of difficulty and a mishap occurred. The result was disastrous. 10-Spot's backpack ended up in Tynndall Creek and within 3 seconds it was carried into the Kern River, never to be seen again. In the blink of an eye everything was gone. Everything!
10-Spot and Turbo then completed the crossing of the fallen tree.
At this point 10-Spot is now 28 miles from civilization with absolutely no gear and he has to go over the highest pass on the entire PCT. All of this in snow with no crampons and no ice-axe. He has no tent, no puffy jacket, no sleeping bag. From this point on it was "hike until you get there". There was no longer the option of stopping and camping for the night.
10-Spot followed in Turbo's footsteps. He had no sunglasses to protect his eyes from snow blindness for the 28 miles of snow. He pulled his hat down and his neck bandana over his eyes. He looked through the fabric.
Turbo kicked and chopped steps in the snow for 10-Spot to have footing for the steep climbs and traverses through the snow. 10-Spot had to glissade down Forester Pass without an ice-axe.
He protected his eyes the best he could, hiked the best he could with no crampons, and along with Turbo, pushed the pace and kept going. Making it all the way to civilization at Onion Valley Trailhead.
When they got to town, they told us the whole story of what had happened and what thoughts they were thinking when the pack went down the Kern River. Wow, and we thought our hike over Forester and Kearsarge Passes were epic. This beat ours by a long shot.
