Miles: 12.9 

Total Trail Miles: 810.8 

Ascent/Descent: 3705/2667 ft 

Start Time: 03:00 

End Time: 13:45 

Temperature: 6°C (43°F)

I slept badly as my toe was really sore, when I woke I removed the plaster to see an infection, the area around the sore had gone black and blue and my toe was swollen. I put some savlon on and plastered it back up much more loosely having little choice but to push through the pain with some help of ibuprofen. Putting my foot in my tight boots was not fun. And then as I was dissembling my tent, the pole joint snapped in the lightest breeze, and this time a splint wouldn't help... not my morning at all. It was cloudy as we left which kind of matched my mood. The initial descent was hard on my foot, pushing my sore toe into the front of the boot. As we got too the bottom we could see bare trail again and even took our spikes off for a while. It started to lightly snow on and off and the breeze picked up, so much for summer in the Sierra. We had to cross a super wobbly suspension bridge that was technically closed due to one of the beams that hold in up being cracked but someone has wrapped some strongish looking rope around it and we had little choice but to trust it. We all made it safely over wobbling from side to side as we crossed. Then the ascent began, we had just over 3700ft of gain up to Pinchot Pass. The plan today was to get as close to it as possible and cross in in the morning, however as the snow remained hard due to the lack of sun and bad weather we decided to push ahead and do the pass today, more ibuprofen was required. The wind got stronger and the snow rarely stopped but we could hear and thunder or lightning so we pushed on. It felt at times like we may get blown over, the mountains weren't happy today. The snow covered the ground in icing sugar like snow and the wind pushed it into our faces and all the sun cups. The final ascent to the pass was pretty much straight up, luckily there was boot track so in was like climbing a ladder. Then the bit I was dreading the descent, we made it over half way down before calling it a day at 13:15, we were all exhausted and my toe was so sore, I let it air for a bit and then applied some antibiotics cream, hopefully it helps. Shortcut kindly offered for me to stay in her tent and us and Buddy accidentally pitched right on the edge of a frozen lake, here's to hoping it stays frozen.