Day 11. Hope Pass

Mile 5.4cw – 28.5cw

Last night we pushed hard to get as far up the mountain as possible, but the grading certainly didn’t make it easy for us. Every step got us only a few inches higher and the peak felt miles farther. We eventually collapsed and pitched our tents closer to another group that we would have usually aimed for. Thankfully we were much closer to the peak than if we had camped at the bottom, so we didn’t have to wake up so early the next day.

We probably still should’ve taken up early. Our big climb today was Hope Pass, not a summit but still a substantial saddle we had to ‘pass’ through. The climb went easily enough, and there was little in our way as we ascended. We started spotting race markers that morning but paid them little mind as we assumed they were from last weekend.

Our problems began on our way down the opposite side of the pass. Six women (and one man) with day packs jogged past us wearing tutus. I applauded their dedication to be running up a mountain that we had barely managed to walk up, and continued down the switchbacks. We realized shortly after that they were members of a Backcountry race, as we stepped aside for a dozen more joggers. The last person in the group warned us that ‘there will be a lot more in a bit!’, but we assumed he was referring to the twenty or so people walking behind him. For a while there was a lull in the action, and we made it quite a ways down below treeline before understanding the true gravity of his words. A solid, unyielding stream of trudging people in race uniform trickled up the trail. We moved aside for them readily enough, not wanting to disrupt them. After almost ten minutes, we could no longer continue down the trail. A man, perhaps trying to be encouraging, let me know that there ‘would only be about .75 miles more of us!’. We were stood there, pressed into a bush beside the trail, for almost an hour. By the time the sweepers passed us, I had uttered hundreds of “no worries”s, “come on through”s, “have a good day”s. We were mildly frustrated that a several mile long stretch of the CDT and CT could be shut down for hours for a race, but thankfully it didn’t impact the rest of our day too much.