[pct-l] CURRENT trail conditioins Mammoth to S.City

[Sir Mix-a-lot]

I'm absolutely sure that it was Duck Pass that our work crew hiked over to
go past Duck Lake so that we could camp alongside Duck Creek to work on the
PCT.  One of the Inyo NF packers told this to a PCTA rep that told me that.
 It's quite believable since the snow on the switchbacks there had barely
melted over the boy scouts rocks and left the rest of the trail under a
couple feet of snow as of 2 days ago.  Granted, snow doesn't always stop the
pack trains, it can certainly upset a mule if they bump up against a boulder
which happened to some Red's Meadow pack mules near Agnew Meadows when a
large boulder landed in the trail and caused that string of mules to run
down into the water and for the cook to get his gear damaged.

Maybe I should have said that the Inyo NF packers refuse to go over that
pass right now?  As a PCT trail worker out there this summer, I found their
support to be very disappointing, which they blamed on the the snow,
although I suspect other reasons...

I do agree about this pass being easy in trail runners, but I've never found
trail runners to be a problem on the snow.  I had more difficulty on the
snow when I was wearing my work boots.

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 5:23 PM, Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes <
diane at santabarbarahikes.com> wrote:

> Are you sure it was Duck Pass and not Dicks Pass? Duck Pass is really
> easy. Trail runners and day hikers in flip-flops easy. I've seen mule
> trains on it, too.
>
> Diane
> On Aug 11, 2011, at 10:00 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
>
> > I heard a few days ago that a pack string from the Mammoth Pack
> > Station had
> > a serious accident going over Duck Pass which is a little under 11k
> > feet.
> >  That pack station sent another pack string through that pass
> > yesterday, but
> > I can tell you that the Inyo NF packers refuse to go through that
> > pass.
>
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