Beginning the approach to Donahue pass at 10,500 feet
Saturday, 23 July 7.0 miles, 7:00
A snowy approach to the pass
Today was Donahue Pass and I knew it would be snowy so we didn’t linger in the morning. We would also break 1eleven thousand feet and I had no idea how I might respond. On top of that Chelsea wasn’t feeling her best. It was setting up to be an interesting day. We set out just after 8:30 and the climb began immediately. A mile of switchbacks and six hundred feet of climb brought us to Twin Bridges over Lyell Forks. From here we began to hit patchy snow and our early start paid off as it was solid. Our next landmark was a small lake at ten thousand feet whose recently frozen outlet we had to cross. I switched to my sandals for the crossing and sloshed across without difficulty. From here it was all snow, all the time. Mostly we followed a well-worn trench but lost it in a snow-filled bowl at around ten thousand five hundred feet. A quick study of the map showed us where we needed to be: on the other side of a second frigid lake outlet. This time I kept my shoes on. They were wet with snow anyway and switching shoes takes a lot of time. We continued following tracks and eventually caught up with the men making them. We proceeded together as the snow became patchy. We got lost again at eleven thousand feet, having headed toward the wrong pass. We weren’t far off course, though, and the error was easily corrected. By 13:15 we stood upon Donahue Pass. With all the mental effort of finding our way up here I’d forgotten about the elevation. Now that I could relax and let my mind wander I looked for any physiological sign of altitude and found none. Our surroundings were spectacular although smog was evident on the horizon. We ate lunch and met our first marmot. She rummaged among the rocks for any dropped morsels and we kept a close eye on our packs as we wandered about the pass.
Getting off the snow at last as we approach camp
Our descent was a long and tedious, yet uneventful, snow slog. We picked our way down, avoiding rotten-looking patches of snow and snow fields under which we heard running water. After what seemed like hours (and, indeed, was hours) we found patches of bare ground to walk on. The bare patches grew bigger and more frequent and merged into larger patches until, eventually, bare ground was the norm and it was the snow that was in small patches. We set camp early, 15:30 at the Marie Lakes trail junction so that Chelsea could rest. We made an early supper and I did a little exploring before tucking into my tent to sleep off the day’s effort.
