Day 53 : 9000+feet

11 June 2013
Mile 721 to mile 743 :  Olancha Trail Junction to somewhere just before Chicken Spring Lake
Mileage : 22

Pan, Mr green and i camped together last night, the other 2 pushed on for another half a mile or so looking for a better spot. Even though all my food was not in my bear canister the first night in the Sierras thankfully past without event, the wind died as we went to bed, and our bear canisters didn't get put to the test. I did however sleep with my hiking poles close to hand ready to fight any marauding bear trying his luck during the night. The first half of the day was spent finishing the climb we started yesterday, and then descending to a meadow for lunch. Just before the stop Starfox, an Aussie who is now paired up with Chick-Chack, one of the Oregon trio, pointed out a carving on a tree trunk of a man smoking a pipe with some unintelligible initials above. His guide book said it was carved by Basque shepherds passing through the area in the middle.of the 19th century, when the west of the US was first being settled. It was pretty cool to see something that old, well, old for the USA at least. After lunch the 2nd climb began leading back up to 10,500 feet. I have been looking at the elevation profiles for the coming days and weeks, and it doesn't look like we'll be back below 9000ft until after Tuolumne meadows (excepting descents out of the mountains at resupply points) and infact will be spending a significant period of those weeks above 11,000ft. The elevation is definitely having an effect on me, i tire more quickly than usual and have to stop to catch my breath more often on the approaches to summits. At this stage we've all reached a high level of fitness, with none of us being particularly stronger or weaker than anyone else, but it seems that the altitude is affecting me more than anyone else, so am the slowest at the moment. Towards the end of the day the trail gave me one of the most impressive views so far, which is saying something for the PCT. Although the PCT passes through Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite national parks in sequence, it really only passes through the easternmost edges.  From west to east the Sierras rise slowly up to their highest sections in the south eastern segment before plunging almost vertically down into the Owens Valley, which runs north south separating the Sierras from the desert mountains ranges around Death Valley. The view that I had in that late afternoon was similar to that from Mt Jacinto, with a vertical drop of about 7000ft, it was incredible.

The Basque shepherd's carving

The view down to Owens Valley

The Sierras are full of this type of tree (a cedar I think) that grows in a helix, I have never seen anything like it. Can anyone why a tree would want to do this?