THRU HIKING THE HIGH SIERRA TRAIL ｜ 5 days & 72 miles crossing the Sierra Nevada

Good morning we're in Sequoia National Park and if you didn't know this is the start to a trail that goes all the way across the Sierra Nevada called the High Sierra Trail and we're going to spend the next five days hiking 72 miles from here all the way to Mount Whitney. This trail has been on our bucket list for years but we just didn't know if it was going to be possible for us to do it. Someone must have canceled just like two weeks ago and we saw the permit and snagged it. We had no plans to do this, didn't do any training, but I could not be more stoked. The views on this trail are some of the best in California in the United States. We got 72 miles to hike. Let's go. Here we go. This is Sequoia. Moro Rock is over there. Oh my gosh I am so stoked. How are you feeling? First backpacking trip of the year. I think our legs are going to be very tired. We're averaging about 15 or so miles a day. Oh my god we could not have asked for better weather for this. We're doing this over 4th of July weekend. The weather is supposed to be amazing which I feel very lucky about. It's just perfect right now. I'm so happy. Oh my god. Wow. 1.4 miles in and the views are crazy. He said is this just going to be 70 miles of views. I think that's why we're here. Oh my gosh. We stopped for some lunch. We brought stuff for trail pizzas. So we have tortillas. We put some pizza sauce in these little packets. Brought two blocks of cheese. One for today and one for tomorrow. Some pepperoni. Basically like real pizza. How are you feeling? Good. First third is out of the way. It continues like that. It's going to be manageable. It's definitely starting to set in what we committed to and that we decided to do 17 miles on the first day. Starting it after having a six hour drive. 10.30. But we're gonna make it. It's so light until like the sun doesn't set till 8.30 or so right now. And the temperature's perfect. So we've got all day to get there. But the lake tonight I'm so excited about. I think it's gonna be the best campsite on the whole trip. This is the ranger station. Pretty insane view they have. Okay Mount Whitney 60 miles away. We are sleeping at Hamilton Lake tonight. So we have four more miles. This water crossing. Holy cow. And that is the old bridge. We are the coziest. There's the sleep setup. Look at that. How'd you sleep? I slept great. Woke up with like a little bit of knee pain which is kind of odd. Not great for a day at the start of day two. Especially when that's what our day looks like. Going all the way up to the top of that thing. Up and over. I think we have like 15 miles today and another 3,600 feet of gain. Pretty much today is gonna be like up up up and then down down down. First we're gonna go up to Precipice Lake which is right up there. Which I read to be one of the most beautifully colored lakes in all of the Sierra. So I'm very excited to see it. I do kind of wish that we could spend more time here though. This is, I mean it looks like Switzerland out here. And while this deer looks really cute, they're actually kind of tormenting us and he's currently licking my pee. So he's not so cute anymore. They've been following us around this campsite. He was charging me when I was peeing this morning. Yeah, you. They're not afraid of humans at all. Hey, get out of there. That's so gross. Go away. Disgusting. What do you think? Is this gonna be the second or first hardest day? Because it's either today or tomorrow. I think tomorrow is gonna be harder. Tomorrow is longer and more gain depending on how we do it. Yeah. We were looking again at the map last night and realized that we heavily miscalculated one of the days and think that we have, we're gonna have to figure it out and it's gonna be fine. But we're adding, we somehow missed like five miles. No, three miles. We missed like 3,000 feet of gain. Oh, that's what it was. Just 3,000 feet of gain. Easily 3,000 feet of gain in what could be like two miles or so. Just this, what, like the steepest part of the whole trail? Yeah. Somehow missed that. And right at the end of the day. Oh, the wildflowers are incredible. I think it's just amazing how we've spent so many years exploring the Sierra. I have really not seen pictures of this place and I've never seen anything like it. We spent a lot of last summer in Europe and this looks so much like the Alps. It's so unbelievable how many places there are to see still. We keep talking about how Sequoia is just so underrated compared to Yosemite. I mean, I'm so grateful for that because there was nobody at our campsite last night in one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Okay, we made it to our lunch spot. This is so incredible. This is Precipice Lake. That is so cold. I'm so proud of myself though. Keep moving onwards. A long way to go today. A little home for the night. That was a very long day. Moraine Lake, absolutely gorgeous. We've been doing a really terrible job of filming because we've just been enjoying. I made some homemade pad thai, freeze-dried pad thai. We did the pad thai and then we have some sriracha packets and some peanut butter, powdered peanut butter, in case you want to put that in because the best pad thai backpacker's pantry pad thai has peanut butter. Good morning. It is day three. We got to camp at Moraine Lake last night and we met some cool people. We just hung out all night so we didn't really film very much but we have a butt kicker of a day today. We think we're gonna try and do like 20 miles, potentially up to 5,000 feet of gain, which is going to be really intense. So it's about 6 a.m right now. We're just having some cereal in a bag. We just used some cereal, oat milk powder, and some cold water. Incredible view to wake up to. We gotta get going. Oh, also there are wild hot springs along the hike today which could be really cool. It also might be really hot so we're just gonna wait and see if we want to get in. We just started hiking and got our first view of Mount Whitney. Hopefully gonna be up there in two days. Ah, so cool. I can't believe we spotted that. Headed into the Kern River Valley. So pretty. Okay, here is the hot spring. We have to remove the plug so that this fills up. Oh, and right next to the river. It is quite warm but it's so nice. Like this is just crazy that we're 37 miles into that country and someone made this amazing tub right by the river for us to soak in and there's nobody here. We've seen like three people all day which is pretty insane. It's hot. I'm like sweating. It's really hot and it's a hot day so like we can't stay in here very long but we had to experience it. Gotta do it. I think we're gonna get into the river and cool our bodies off because today's gonna be a long and hot one. So we are currently hiking through a burn scar. There's lots of downed trees. Very little shade. We both took a nap. It was a very lovely nap and it's about 3 30 right now and we're gonna try and give it a shot and get over this pass. Just like we have the daylight right now it doesn't get dark until 9 p.m so we're just gonna take it slow and steady and eat lots of candy and see how this goes. We can't stop talking about burgers. That's literally all we're thinking about. Also there's literally nobody out here. We have passed five people today. One group of three, two solo guys. That was very early on. Have not seen anybody since 9 a.m which is pretty amazing. Okay we made it. I'm so relieved right now. We ended up doing 19.84 miles, 4 300 feet of gain which means that we have a pretty chill day tomorrow which we're very excited about. The mosquitoes are insane. So on the menu for dinner tonight is Zoe's freeze-dried alfredo pasta with chicken and peas and parsley and some sun-dried tomatoes for just a little extra like satisfying flavor. We put some of the white cheese packets from white cheddar mac and cheese. Only the highest quality. Highest quality but damn it's good. This is what it looks like. Good morning. We're very sprawled out waiting for our food. Seeing how much we can eat for lunch and dinner tonight. I'm realizing not sure that we've talked about this but a lot of the campsites on the high seer trail actually have bear boxes. So we only brought this little one because we only have one campsite for night to night that we actually need a bear canister because every single campsite we've stayed at has a bear box which has been very luxurious. We do have to plan accordingly because they don't all have them but Hamilton Lake, Moraine Lake and this is Wallace Creek because I think we would have had to each bring one of the really large bear canisters which is so uncomfortable to carry. So there's the whole Whitney skyline. Trail crest might be around the corner where we're going to go up and then tomorrow we'll drop our packs hike all the way to the top and back getting very close. So for a section of today's hike we are on the high sierra trail the PCT and the JMT all at the same time. The rest of the trail that we're doing is shared with the JMT but it's so cool. We've already been meeting people in the PCT on the JMT from different countries just gives you like a little bit of a taste into the through hiker world. Everyone's so nice and friendly and it's just like everyone that's out here is doing something really big because of how far we are which is so cool. This basin is incredible. So that is Guitar Lake. We're gonna hang out there for a while and then apparently there's a spot up here somewhere about a mile away that we can hike to to get a head start for Whitney in the morning. How does no one talk about how beautiful this spot is? Everyone talks about the other side obviously everyone talks about Whitney but this is pretty epic. Can you go find camp somewhere up there just to get a little closer to Whitney in the morning? Look at how incredible this is. Dang and up there behind all those little spires is the summit of Whitney about 3,000 feet above us. Wow so pretty. Got some homemade pad thai with a view. How terrible. Tomorrow we go up and up and up and up and then down down down down down down. How much down? Down down down down down down down. If I remember correctly I think it's like 6,000 feet of descending. Might be more. Last night out here. Pretty spectacular. It's cold this morning. It's so cold. We uh we slept through our alarm a little bit. This morning's honestly been like the hardest morning to wake up even though yesterday was kind of a rest day but now we have the big climb to the summit of Whitney this morning. Last day. So from here we have like 2,500 feet of climbing over four miles to the summit of Whitney. We're gonna leave our packs at Trail Crest so we don't have to carry the whole weight all the way to the summit because you just have to backtrack that section anyways and then it'll be like a really really really long descent of 6,000 feet all the way to the Whitney portal and hopefully our ride is there waiting for us. And burgers. Burgers, yes. We are craving some burgers. The Sufferfest begins. We're prepared for a warm summer outing. Should put some socks on those hands. I know. I'm considering it. Wow. Oh we've been waiting to see these the whole time. They're freaking beautiful. Okay so these flowers are called Sky Pilots. They only grow above 12,000 feet. It's just absolutely amazing because there is no life anywhere up here. It's just rock and somehow these are able to survive and look so stunning. We're almost to the pass. Holy cow. I'm loving you. Okay we made it to the Whitney trail. We're gonna drop all our heavy stuff. Just bring some water and snacks to the summit. Okay we've got snacks and water and Kelby's pack. I have no weight now. Feeling super light to make it to the summit. We made it. We made it. Fourth of July on top of Whitney. Just feels so crazy to be up here after how far we've come. I think that the one thing on our minds right now is just burgers. Burgers down at the Whitney portal. All the way down there. Did not miss this thing. Got our packs. Says we have 8.7 miles to the portal. At the portal there is a burger. I hope. I so lack that. One last little climb to trail crest and then it is literally all downhill from there. Wish us luck. Wish our knees luck honestly. Almost done with the 99 switchbacks. Okay we're about two miles from finishing our 72 mile trail. We have so far hiked 70 miles which just feels absolutely insane. I think we both are just feeling super strong. This morning we woke up and like felt like Whitney was the easiest that it's ever felt. It was like such a treat. We're also just both feeling so inspired by how many beautiful places we got to see on this trip that you just don't even see online usually. There is just truly a lifetime of adventures out in the city of Nevada. We have spent so many years exploring it and have just barely scratched the surface so I can't wait to see what else we can see. How are you feeling all the way from Sequoia National Park to the Whitney portal? I feel a little tired. I feel very warm because as we're getting lower it's just getting hotter and I'm feeling hungry for some not trail food. I want something easy but beer sounds real nice. 72 miles from Sequoia National Park to the eastern Sierra all the way across the Sierra Nevada. How freaking cool is that? 24 pounds. Eight pounds lighter than I started. Eight pounds of food? I don't even know if I can lift mine up there. We did it. Cheers. Great hike.