PCT Day 66 – Little Pete Meadow (832.8) to PCT mile 848.5

June 9, 2026

Total PCT miles: 15.7

Non PCT miles: 0

Total: 15.7 miles / 25.3 km

Total elevation gain: 4150 ft

Total elevation loss: 3274 ft

Steps: 40028

We probably should have left much earlier today but for some reason we decided to “sleep in” and leave at 0700hrs. I won’t lie I really enjoyed the relaxed pace this morning. There wasn’t even any condensation on my tent! Extra bonus! I got to hang out with the deer that were still chilling out near the tents and just take it slow. I noticed that one of the deer was wearing a tracking collar. Wonder what the purpose of that is? It was nice to sleep in but we definitely paid for this decision later in the day.

We had about 3000 ft of elevation gain over 6.8 miles to reach Muir Pass. Sitting at just under 12000 ft it is a long and gradual accent and decent. It is often described as one of the toughest passes due to the miles of snow fields one must cross in both directions. This description is 100% accurate.

On the way up hit snow at 09:30 hrs about 4.5 miles into our day and dint see any real dry trail until near 14:00 hrs about 4 miles after the pass. So almost 7 miles of walking on snow was completed. Because of the temperatures the snow was more of a fine slush and perfect conditions for post holing.

On the accent I had to be careful of what boot tracks to follow. The wrong tracks lead you to the left of the waterfall which becomes quite treacherous to cross. Fortunately I was paying attention to my map and went the right way and managed to prevent Yukon from going that way. We passed two unnamed alpine lakes and continued up into basically a field of white. It was mostly a choose your own adventure kinda affair. I didn’t wear my microspikes, the slush snow was perfectly fine to walk on without.

We finally reached Muir Shelter just before noon and had a little break. I put on my waterproof socks (thank goodness I bought these) for the way down. There was no real trail to follow. Just go down into the white void and hope you don’t post hole too much. Multiple times I did post hole to my knee and a few times almost to my hips.

I’ve never been so happy to see dry trail in my life. I even yelled, part in anger, part in exhaustion and part in relief. Muir pass sucked. 100% the hardest pass so far, do not recommend. Patches of snow continued on for another two or so miles but at least the worst of it was over.

We now entered into Evolution Basin which despite my semi foul mood was beautiful. We had to cross the Evolution Lake inlet which had a nice rock hop bridge that was mostly submerged. Fortunately my shoes were already soaking wet so I didn’t care about getting them wetter.

High Stakes and myself found rock overlooking Evolution Lake and took a nice break and started the process of drying out our socks and shoes.

From here we finally started to really descend and it was only a few more miles to our camp site for the night. The whole group is tired after this long slog. Fortunately there is no pass tomorrow. But there are some of the more challenging river crossings to contend with. Just to add more fun into the day it looks like mosquito season is starting because we had a decent number of them at camp tonight.