We woke up to a frigid snow covered morning.

Our camp site protected us from some of the wind and snow, but up to a foot of snow had fallen on top of the existing snow pack making for slow hiking as we broke trail.

As we worked our way up towards Pinchot Pass, the trail became increasingly hard to find/follow. We could see the pass up in the mountains ahead but often couldn’t find the actually trail, so we just forged ahead. Hopefully, our footprints helped anyone following behind us later.

Halfway to the pass we ran into another hiker, Taz, who had set up camp to hole up against the storm. After talking a bit, he decided to pack up and join us to hike up over the pass. Surely three backpackers could find the trail! *

*We still couldn’t stay on the trail…and don’t call us Shirley!

But, we knew where we needed to end up and eventually we worked our way to the pass.

We were able to break for a moment on top before the snow blew back in.

We worked our way down off the pass as snow squalls blew over the mountains and through the valley.

We finished the day early as the snow began falling more consistently and camped near Kings River. Taz got a fire going and it quickly drew in a half dozen other hikers. We tried (in vain) to dry our socks, shoes and thaw half frozen water bottles as the snow continued to fall before retreating to our tents for the night.