TR: Cottonwood Pass to Guyot Pass/Peak 6/16-6/18/16

[KathyW]

Day 1 (6/16/16): I started up the trail about 12:30 pm and I backpacked from Cottonwood Pass to just before the SEKI boundary. When I got to Chicken Spring Lake, I filled my water bottle from the outlet stream but it was brown tinted and not too appealing; so I filtered it before I used it that night. I camped in a nice sheltered dry camp (next to one of the few remaining snow patches).

Day 2 (6/17/16): I woke up to a beautiful sunrise over Siberian Outpost, packed up my camp and headed on down to Rock Creek along with tons of PCT thru hikers who were on the trail. Rock Creek was easy to wade across and the water was nice and clear. I filled my three water bottles before heading on because I didn't know if I'd run into either water or snow patches at or on the way to my intended campsite at Guyot Pass. It was a pleasant hike to Guyot Pass and I found a nice spot just a little west of the pass to set up camp next to a snow patch that I could use to melt snow for use if had time to clean up. Once my tent was up, I hiked up the hill to the summit of Mount Guyot. I had hauled an axe and lightweight crampons along, but I never needed them as the only snow I had to cross was up near the summit and easy to cross. I spent a bunch of time climbing the rock piles along the summit ridge trying to figure out which was the tallest and then I finally found the register and benchmark at the south end of the ridge, but it looked like the highpoint was actually one of the other rock piles I had climbed and not where the benchmark was. I spent a nice night near Guyot Pass.

Day 3 (6/18/16): I retraced my steps back out to the trailhead for Cottonwood Pass at Horseshoe Meadows. I ran into at least 100 PCT thru hikers while out there. I had been in the same area two weeks prior and also ran into a bunch that weekend. Based on how many thru hikers I ran into in my limited time out there, it seems like there must be thousands of people attempting the PCT this year. I gave a nice man a ride from the trailhead down to Lone Pine on the way out so he could resupply - he was recently retired and thru hiking. I'd be curious if the number of PCT hikers is a lot higher than it used to be.

I clocked about 37 miles round trip with 6800 gain/loss with all the ups and downs. Anyway no problem with bugs and it's pretty dry in that area.

Some photos:

https://kathywing.smugmug.com/Californi ... Horseshoe/

[maverick]

Thanks Kathy for the TR and wonderful pictures. Supposedly a lot of PCT thru hikers delayed or even passed on the Sierra section of their hikes, which could explain the concentration of them at this time.