Snowy Forest

This morning my thermometer read 29 degrees, and my shoes were frozen rock solid outside my tent. Isn’t this mid-July in California?

I spent the day hiking with several others, most of the time on snow, often off trail since we kept getting lost. Navigation in the forest with ten feet of snow on the ground is very difficult; a GPS helps dramatically (for instance, a guy we met today who didn’t have one had just spent three hours wandering in random circles) but when the trail is totally obscured you’re bound to bushwhack a lot no matter what, and progress this afternoon was gauged in long traverses and some entertaining boot-skiing straight down a set of buried switchbacks, totaling 16 miles. Clouds are rolling in and it’s still cold – hope the weather holds off.