New Valley Hills

Cross that river or Skurka over the top route?

I thought yesterday was my toughest day; how wrong I was.

Arriving at the creek before that river I looked in dismay at what seemed to me an in-crossable torrent of water. Others were doing so, both Nobo PCTers and Sobo JMTers, men and women, taller and shorter than me. They said it was tough but doable, but a report came to me from the day before of someone getting swept away before swimming to the bank sealed my fate – over the top it was.

This detour had been drawn out from a desk as an unproven route. FarOut comments revealed many others had done it with varying levels of challenge depending on experience and confidence.

Rock scrambling up 1000ft, crossing granite ledges for 2 miles, grade 3 scrambling down 800ft. Cliffing out twice and having to backtrack vertically. Getting lost, loosing the trail, running out of water until I found the waterfall. I decided to sit until someone else came along, only 5 minutes until a confident scrambler came down. Bird had an uncanny ability to sniff out the trail and easily slither down it. I was only 20ft from it but hadn’t seen it. Asking if I could tag along with him back down to the PCT, he agreed as long as I kept up with him. Graciously he paused several times as I nervously followed the obvious track down a very steep slope, sweating copiously at the limit of my comfort zone of scrambling and climbing. Never my strong point, steep downhills triggered my vertigo.

At the bottom he kindly pointed me towards hot springs 4.5 miles ahead, before I thanked him and he sped off. Hot springs sounded wonderful to soothe my aching body; my upper half hadn’t had such a workout for months with all that climbing up and down. I managed just 2.7 miles before yet again I collapsed into my quilt. Today had surpassed yesterday as most challenging!

Overall 4000ft of descent which was tough on my quads.

The upside of today was this view looking ESE up Evolution Valley. You only get this view from being off the PCT.