Sun. August 21      Miles today: 20.4         Total so far: 1,721.5         Sierras Section H

We woke up at 5:00 am to find our tarp in a pool of moonlight in the thick forest where we’d camped.  It made getting up and packing a LOT easier!  The moon was still high as we started down the trail, and the mountains all around were beautiful in the early morning light.  We climbed steadily toward Glen Pass, stopping for breakfast along the way, and admiring Lake Charlotte below the trail.

Then the PCT turned west, and the serious climbing began.  The trail was steep and rocky.  Sometimes there were stone stairs and sometimes we were just walking over rocks and boulders.  It was grueling, but there were pretty little wildflowers along the way to make things easier.  Eventually we reached the lake just below the pass, and after more rough, rocky switchbacks, we were at the top of Glen Pass.  There were great views to the north and to the south! 

Then came down, down, a horribly steep, rough trail.  Downhills like this are slow going for me, but I still felt sorry for all the people we met who were puffing their way UP.  Everybody is heading south, and only doing the John Muir Trail, not the PCT.  But finally we were down off the awful rocks, and reached lovely Rae Lakes. The water is so clear that you can see the trout!  The only hard part is the creek between the lakes–it’s deep and roaring and the only way across is a sort of log jumble.  I had heard about this crossing, and figured, “If everybody else can do it, I can do it, too!”  Actually, it turned out to be not bad.

Now we had many more miles of downhill (for a net elevation losss of 4,000 feet since the top of the pass) through a fine green valley with lots of lakes.  Thee were also LOTS of hikers, camping!  We had another tricky creek crossing and a short time later, stopped for lunch.  I have to say that every time we stop for a meal, repacking is made tough by having to stow bear cans in a way that they won’t fall out of or off of our packs.  I can see why the SOBOs we bought them from were so happy to get rid of them!

The valley became more rocky, but instead of boulders and gravel, it was now wide slabs of granite that were MUCH nicer to hike on!  When we were almost at the botom of the valley, near a junction where we would turn east, we saw down the canyon to the west a sight no hiker ever wants to se–a forest fire!  It looked like it had just started, and we were glad to be going the OTHER way!  But first, we had fun crossing a sort of mini-Golden Gate bridge–a cute suspension bridge made of wood and wire.  Only one person at a time may cross, and it does SWAY!  But what beautiful engineering!

Now we began a 4,000 foot CLIMB up to Pinchot Pass.  For several miles, the trail followed rushing, roaring, cascading Woods Creek.  Bill and I were joking, “Wonder if anyone ever kayaked THAT whitewater?”  Off to the right, we got great views of the valley we’d just come down.  The hike up was not bad, because the trail followed a pattern of go up, level off, go up, level off, through a variety of scenery.  There were lots of side creeks, too, very pretty.  As we turned around to look west, the smoke from the fire was much worse.  Several times we met southbound JMT-ers who were anxiously eyeing all the smoke ahead, and we were able to reassure them that the JMT would turn off before going into the canyon where the fire was. 

Eventually we were well above timberline, and headed for the pass, hoping to get across it before making camp.  But we were just short of the top when the sun went down, and not knowng what lay on the other side, we had to stop.  We were at about 12,000 feet elevation.  The “alpenglow” was fabulous to watch as we set up our tarp and prepared for a cold night, and boy, was I glad that there was no chance of the forest fire reaching us–we were among rocks!  We put on lots of layers before crawling into our sleeping bags.