Celebrating five years of being part of SWAP with a route that's been on my to-do for a while. I've done the more popular version (through the Granite Chief trail) in the other direction but I thought this variant was pretty cool.
It was a fairly cool day (for the season) and I didn't get a particularly early start (around 8:30am). It was wiiiiindy making the crest not always the most pleasant and at times I felt like I was moving backwards! But it didn't remove the beauty of it.
There was a Ragnar race going on at Sugar Bowl and got distracted and turned on the dirt road where the runners were and lost the PCT for a short bit. That added a bit of vert, half a mile and bushwhacking to get back on the trail but I tried to not let that decrease the fun of the day. I eventually caught up with Ryan (who had been behind me until the wrong turn) and he was quite surprised to see me arrive from behind. I decided I'd have plenty of time to explain later so I kept on going ahead and we met back in Olympic Valley.
Arriving at High Camp, it was pretty dead as the Tram was closed because of the wind. I continued down flying on the dirt road... Time to catch up with friends and enjoy some yummy Mexican food.
No water in the creeks on the crest but I wasn't planning on filtering any so all good!