Day 7, 1:11 PM - Subject at Day 7 - the backpacking Zombie
Return to day page View previous item 2 hours into the hardest day yet The Kings River valley - escape at dawn 3 hours and 40 minutes of strolling gets you this This trail has a name... Approaching Granite Pass Subject at Day 7 - the backpacking Zombie Scanning for Granite Pass Maybe that's Granite Pass? Unknown meadow at 10,500 feet Last look back before crossing Granite Pass Glacier-polished granite split by trees From Granite Pass, down to Granite Lakes basin View next item

Even as I was consciously enjoying the novelty of pain-free feet, mishap was lurking in the shadows. For some reason, pumping the water filter produced no flow - the bottle remained alarmingly empty. The filter, an MSR, is designed to be field-serviced, and it seemed to me that the problem must be due to a sticky ball-valve where the water enters. I unscrewed the hose attachment and looked at the ball, but it seemed fine. I covered the inlet with my finger and pulled on the pump lever. It produced good suction. I took my finger away from the hole and the ball... was... gone? The ball was GONE! How could this be? I looked into the inlet several times thinking I must be mistaken, but the little ball, about the size of a pea, was simply gone! It must have flown out somehow when I took my finger away from the hole. I looked all around me, on me, under me... nowhere! If it wasn't in the pump, and it wasn't on me or near me it had to be... oh no. It must have fallen in the stream! AHHH! I didn't know if it would be a floater or a sinker, but, assuming it would float, I jumped up and ran down the stream a bit, scanning the surface for a little black pea-sized ball, but somehow didn't see it. I ran further downstream, but still no luck. I searched futilely for another 5 minutes before accepting the fact that the ball was gone.

Without that ball, the pump can draw water, but will just push it all back down the intake hose rather than through the filter. Without the pump, two choices remain: Drink what you find and take your chances (Giardia has been found above 10,000 foot), or boil all the water you drink, using up a lot of fuel and seriously impeding progress. I was drinking about 7 or 8 liters each day, so boiling would have been a major hassle. The threat of that hassle gave me an inspiration. Reassembling the pump, I put the hose in the stream, drew water into the piston, used two fingers to pinch the hose, and pushed on the pump handle... voila! A small trickle of water flowed from the filter outlet into the bottle! Another cycle, another trickle! A third push on the handle and the hose blew off its fitting and sprayed my face with water. Slower, more careful pumping solved that problem and I was back in business. Whew!

I took this picture about an hour later, when I stopped for a rest. I'd been on the go for 9 hours, and still had another 5 hours of hiking ahead of me.