Taking the Wizard to the PCT

We drop Caleb at Sonora Pass 10k up in the Sierras

Caleb was packed and ready to hit the trail an hour before I got up this morning. Like his father, he has an internal engine that revs all the time, and after two and a half days of rest and good eating, that internal restlessness to be back on the trail was clear.

We rolled out by 7:30 to drive him out of Yosemite via Tioga Pass, along Highway 395 past Mono Lake and then up Highway 108, all the way to to magnificent Sonora Pass, where Hwy. 108 and the Pacific Crest Trail intersected. 

Many switchbacks!

The drive was splendid and the weather perfect as we rolled through high desert chaparral, passing through fresh daisies, sagebrush  and lupine once we wove down the exit out of of Yosemite via Tioga Pass. We drove through the area of Lukens Lake, charred but recovering from the 2020 fire, on this very different day from our last, terrifying, drive through that area as it burned.

We made conversation with Caleb: about people we’d met so far, about the idiosyncrasies and subculture of PCT …