PCT Section K Hike September 2023 – Five Lakes

Goal for the day: Somewhere near Tinker Knob

I awoke and was a little surprised that the bad weather that had been forecast overnight didn’t seem to have happened. Maybe some light rain, but I had expected I might have to wait out some morning rain for an hour or two. While it was still overcast, I was easily able to have breakfast, pack up my gear, and get started without getting wet.

That may have been the last dry moment I had on the trail that day.

It became apparent that the forecasted overnight rain had shifted to morning rain as I made my way up towards Granite Chief. I’ve been in worse downpours, but the constant rain was starting to get to me by the time I reached the Olympic Valley ski area.

The ski lifts actually went almost up to the top of Granite Chief, so I had to go under them. It was about this time that I got a dusting of HAIL around the area. Fortunately it was small and melted quickly, but that seemed to be the final straw for me.

It had taken 6 hours to get to that point, which was very slow progress and I knew it was mostly the weather that was slowing me down (plus my old 57 year old body).

It seemed like the rest of the day would be rainy, so I started to look for a place to setup my tent and wait through the storms inside. I ended up finding a nice place to camp with a possible view of the area and Lake Tahoe (if the rain stopped and the clouds parted).

I should have gone further and found someplace at a lower elevation and more sheltered. It turned out to be a very cold place to camp. Fortunately, I had enough layers to survive, but I wished I hadn’t left my fleece pants behind to save weight. I hadn’t expected it to get this cold since most of this part of the PCT was under 8,500 feet. I had forgotten the backpacker’s motto: Expect the unexpected

Fortunately by late afternoon the rain had mostly stopped and the sky to the east was starting to clear up. The western sky was mostly still filled with clouds. It was a little odd to see blue to the east and gray to the west, but I had seen this phenomenon in the mountains many times. The highest ridge line around tends to divert weather or squeeze out moisture from the clouds before it effects areas on the other side of the ridge line.

So, although I came up way short of my goal for this day, the sunset light cast against the clouds to the east helped me finish the day on a happy note.