PCT Day 32 - Baden Powell

After a restful evening in a holistic style lodge, a full resupply, followed by a hiker filled room with another warm bed we were ready to hit the trail again. We started to climb towards Baden Powell in the late afternoon as we wanted to give the snow some time to get slushy since we did not have micro spikes. The peak of Baden Powell is 8 miles from the point we reconnected with the PCT. Throughout the previous days over satisfying food and refreshing beers we had received conflicting information on how intense Baden Powell may or may not be. The general consensus was that it was doable but some thought the spikes necessary and others not. With as much Intel as possible we begin our hike by declining a thousand feet before the trail led us to a parking lot.  On the other side was Baden Powell and 41 switchbacks awaited us. We marched on with dead focus contemplating the challenge ahead. We first encountered snow 2 miles before the peak and it picked up its consistency over the next mile or so. The last 3/4 mile of trail was completely snow-covered and only a single set of well trampled foot prints led to the top. Going through the snow with the incline we faced was only possible because of our trekking polls since we didn’t have the micro spikes. The peak was rewarding as we could see the world from a birds eye view and other smaller peaks from all over SoCal. Also an American flag and a monument for whom the peak is named was present. We hoped the way down might be easier with less snow but it most certainly was not. We hiked through snowy trail for 5 miles, most of it completely covered so we found the footsteps of past hikers and followed them. 

I fell about five times and slid many more. At one point I almost slipped off a ridge, if I had I would had slid for 70 or 80 feet and would have required someone to loan me spikes or an axe to get back up, this definitely made my heart skip a beat or two. As we trailed on the moon rose and the sunset. We camped 5 miles from the peak on the edge of the snow line over looking an LA suburb. With it getting dark we could not risk transversing through another snowy ridge at night.