Mile 899ish: Silver Pass

Sllept in way late this morning, didn't get out of the sleeping bag until 7:30. We hiked up to Silver Pass, there was a good bit of snow again, nothing we couldn't handle but aggravatig just the same. There was a really obvious saddle/pass, but when we got on top, we looked to our right, and there was the trail going up to an even higher saddle between the peak to our right and the next one.

There were some really fun glissade chutes. One was exactly like a slip'n'slide with little bumps, we had a really good time on that one. Carmen went down one little slide that banged her right up against a rock, so I went over to a very steep, rock-free chute. The entire plan was to slide down to the flat spot below, and I had chosen the chute because it was rock-free, but when I slipped while walking and couldn't stop myself with hands, heels, butt, pack, and poles on the icy snow for several feet, it freaked me out. I admit that I anchored myself as best possible, and got my ice axe out (I can do it one handed with my pack on) so that I had the ability to stop myself. What I should have done was either facing my fears and letting myself slide down, or else once I got my axe out made use of the excellent opportunity to practice self-arrest technique, and started myself off on my back head first. Oh well.

We hiked. A southbound female JMT hiker got really excited that we were a group of three girls. We got really excited about the two bridges we got to cross. We discussed ways in which we could try to jazz up couscous. We dealt with patches of snow all day long. We fantasized about the showers and burgers we'll be getting in Red's Meadow tomorrow. It was a pretty good day.

We ate dinner right after a shoes-wet river crossing, and found some wild onions to put in our chicken teriyaki couscous. Then we hiked another hour and a half until dark, and we're cowboy camping like sardines in the first flat spot we spied. Now I sleep.

- Typoed on my iPhone