“A pass a day keeps the doctor away”.

Bedtime was right. Kearsarge. Glen. Pinchot. Mather. Bishop. A five day stretch from the town of Independence to the larger town of Bishop, each day with a pass around 12,000 feet in elevation. 

Early on in this hike, like mile one, we met a wise trail angel name Legend who told Purple Rain and I that it was no longer our hike, as others had been before, but Bedtime’s. We were unsure what that meant at the time but it has become clearer as time (and miles) have passed.

Snow lingered on the ridge above. You could hear it melting as myriad waterfalls rushed down it’s flanks, flowing together into snow melt creeks below Forrester Pass (the highest point on the PCT). Instinctively Bedtime ran to the nearest creek and stuck his face in. “It’s so fresh!” he yelled, plunging his face back in. “You have to try it! It’s so fresh! Do not filter this water, dad!”

A few weeks before we were thinking about skipping the Sierras. We had safety concerns around snow traverses and swelling creeks. As we got closer we knew we had to go through. Bedtime was in love with the granite, the flowing water, and the snow. It was his hike, and we were going to make it happen for him.

The Sierras are physically challenging. Common sentiment is that your mileage is cut in thirds. So if you’re hiking 30s in the desert you are hiking 20s in the mountains. For us, averaging 15 in the desert…we aren’t going anywhere fast. We are having to resupply more frequently than most (which means extra miles to exit the range) and have taken some detours to off trail lakes in order for Bedtime to have a more playful campsite.

We are hiking his hike now. We plan to be in Mammoth Lakes soon to celebrate his sixth birthday. A few more passes to go before we get there. We are all excited. And while our pace and detours mean we will not be completing a “true thru” of the PCT, we are giving our son a summer of living outdoors. He can build dams in fresh melt creeks, have snowball fights mid-trail, catch tadpoles in alpine lakes, climb good granite and really embrace being a kid. We’ll see where we get after Mammoth Lakes. Maybe six year olds hike faster…