Cameron and Maren's JMT Adventure: Forester Pass

That morning we got up at around 10 o'clock because we knew we had a long day ahead of us -- lots of mileage and lots of elevation gain. We were going over Forester Pass which is at an elevation of 13,200 feet. Allison told us that it was going to be really hard and that it would take us a long time. Before we left camp, she had us drink some perpetuem (it is an energy drink that athletes use) which tasted disgusting but she assured us it would help us out later with the big climb. We started hiking up the trail and started to eat a lot of candy (gobstoppers and bottle caps) and shot bloks that were fully caffeinated. We hiked really fast up Forester Pass. Allison was a ways behind us because her pack was so heavy with all of the food. When we stopped to fill up our water for the last time she had us drink more perpetuem. This time though we added a packet of hot chocolate which made it taste like a milkshake. It was good!

We had no problem going up Forester Pass, in fact we went really fast. When we got to the top we screamed a lot of thing like "we are tweenagers" and "this is our last pass." We also went really fast going down and sang lots of songs. Allison finally had to start running to catch up with us. After that big pass we still had a lot of energy. We were not sure if it was the candy, shot bloks or the perpeteum. It was probably a combination of all three or possibly it was because we had been hiking for so many days at high elevation it did not really bother us.

We went a few more miles after Forester Pass and camped at Bear Creek. There were quite a few people already there but we found a campsite near the trail junction. We had chicken noodle soup with dumplings for dinner. The dumplings didn't quite work out but they made the soup extra creamy.