Wed. August 24         Miles today: 23             Total so far: 1,786.8        Sierras Section H

Hooray, we beat the mosquitoes this morning!  We were up, packed, and headed out before they woke up.  About a half hour after we started hiking, we met Alan, a 70-year-old doing the John Muir Trail.  He was fascinated and enthused about what we were doing, and asked a lot of questions.  Turns out he’s travelling ultralight–no tent, not even a tarp (“What if it rains?” I wondered to myself), and he has no stove.  He’s living on a “superhealthfood protein drink”, granola, Clif Bars, and “Gu” the glucose gel that runners use for instant energy.   He’s in great shape, so I guess it’s working for him.  It’s been very encouraging to meet so many older backpackers in their 60’s and 70’s.  Modern lightweight gear is making it possible.

Talking so long with Alan made us late for breakfast, but we stopped at the bridge over the San Joaquin river, where Bill got water (no falling in, this time!) and we ate as fast as we could.  Much as we love talkng to other hikers, there are so many of them on the JMT, that we are being slowed down considerably.  Sometimes, even though we hate doing it, we just have to put our heads down and blow by people.  After breakfast, we followed the trail as it followed the river steeply downcanyon.  Wow!  What a sight to see the San Joaquin roaring and foaming down its twisting, rocky channel.  Again we wondered out loud, “Has anyone ever tried to kayak this?”

Eventually we reached the turnoff for Selden Pass, and things got more mellow.  The climb up begins by going thrugh a sort of “forest park” with pines and green grass and wildflowers.  We met some trail riders, carrying hunting bows in special holsters, and later a lady wrangler leading a string of empty-saddled dude horses back down the trail.  We guessed they were from Muir Trail Ranch.  Finally we reached a sort of “lake district”–beautiful!  There were lots of backpackers at Sally Keyes Lakes, plus the happy dudes who’d ridden up on the horses and were now wandering about with camersa, excited about “camping out” that night.  We reached pretty little Heart Lake, and began our final climb to Selden Pass up a narrow, lovely canyon with fascinating rock formations, lots of “bonsai” trees, and plenty of wildflowers.  I really enjoyed Selden–out of all the other passes, it doesn’t try to be scary, or try to be impressive.  It is a quietly beautiful, intimate sort of place.  If we hadn’t been trying to “make miles”, I would really have liked to linger there to enjoy it.  Soon we were at the 10,900 foot top of the pass, with great views.

Down the other side, we found a very scenic “alpine” area, but a very rocky trail that was hard on our feet.  Owww!  Several pretty lakes were scattered among the rocks.  Up head of us, farther down the valley, lay the ford of Bear Creek, which is considered by PCT thruhikers to be THE WORST stream crossing of the whole trail.  Well, it turned out that Billy Goat’s comment yesterday was right on–“The Bear” was knee deep!  We crossed with no problem, and began to follow it through an often damp and muddy forest dotted with a number of giant mushrooms.  At last came the final climb of the day–up to the top of 9,900 foot Bear Ridge, where we stopped to camp.  It was very quiet and very cold in the forest, but we dispensed with the tarp in order to have a quicker start in the morning to catch the 9:45 ferry to Vermillion Valley Resort.   I would say that scenery-wise, this day was really beautiful, and not having any really tough trail was a help, too.

Tues. August 23      Miles today: 21.4         Total so far: 1,763.8         Sierras Section H

We got a good start this morning, full of enthusiasm about our “goal of the day”, which was going over famous Muir Pass.  Eventually we stopped for breakfast (and to collect water) at the bridge over Dusy Creek.  The creek was roaring furiously over its smooth granite bed, and poor Bill almost came to disaster while trying to get water–he slipped on the wet granite and fell in.  I was over with the packs, organizing the breakfast stuff when I heard him yelling for help.

I ran as fast as I could to the creek and saw Bill lying in the roaring creek, braced against a rock, trying not to be swept away.  He was not far from shore.  And was he concerned for his own personal situation–No!  He wanted me to first rescue his WATCH, so it wouldn’t get wet!  He managed to get it off and throw it to me.  Then I ran and got a trek pole (no handy tree branches lying around) and he managed to get out of the roaring water by holding on to the trek pole while I pulled on it.   (Bill now has great respect for slippery wet granite!)

After breakfast (fortunately the sun was well up and quickly dried Bill off!)  we went on upcanyon, following the Kings River.  Sometimes the trail was steep, and sometimes it went through green, forested flats.  On one of the steep parts, we met a large group of llamapackers.  Nice for them–the llamas carry the packs, but they are sloooooow.  As we continued the climb up toward Muir Pass, we couldn’t resist looking ahead, trying to guess where the trail went next.  Pretty soon we were above timberline again, and running into SNOW, which meant “snowbank crossings” plus innumerable snowmelt creek and mudhole crossings, too.  There were sections where the whole area was just running with water and mud.

But finally we reached the top of 11,955 foot Muire Pass and there was the famous stone hut, with a congregation of hikers gathered around it.  What caught my eye, though, was a fat marmot peering down from the top of the chimney.  I whisked out the camera to get a picture of him, and the little rascal whisked around and stuck out his rear end!  Rude, rude.  We looked inside and there were stone bunks and a bricked-up fireplace.  Back outside there were lots of hikers to talk to, and we did for awhile, but eventually we moved on to find water and a place for lunch.  Everything was just rocks, and snowmelt.  The best “water hole” we could find was a place where water was literally running across the trail, so that’s where we stopped.  I think we shocked a number of other hikers who saw us take that water and cook with it–and no filtering first.  So far we are doing just fine without the filter.

We continued on past many lakes–Wanda Lake was large, pretty, wildflowery and BUGGY, but we met lots of hikers who were headed there to camp.  Everybody is always asking us where WE plan to camp, and we just tell them, “When the sun goes down, we find the nearest flat place and that’s our camp.”  This seems to horrify the JMT hikers, who seem to have their itineraries all planned out.  In fact, when we meet hikers here on the JMT/PCT, the standard questions everybody asks us are: “Where’d you camp last night?” followed by “How bad were the mosquitoes?”  (People are obsessed with the mosquitoes.)   Finally we reached upper Evolution Creek.  The crossing there is a set of huge stepping stones through some pretty deep water.  Bill commented that it would be a tricky crossing if there was a lot of snow and ice. Then came a walk around gorgeous Evolution Lake.  I hate the name, though, so I’ve renamed it Creation Lake!  It is one of the most beautiful lakes we’ve seen so far.

At around 5:00 pm, we were heading downcanyon, following the creek, when whom should we meet, leaning on a rock and having a snack, but the PCT-hiker-famous “Billy Goat”!  We introduced ourselves, and Billy Goat introduced his friend “Two-Stick Ken” who was hiking with him for this section of the PCT.  We swapped stories of our PCT adventures so far,  while Bill and I ate an early supper.  We had a great time, and lingered for quite awhile.  Billy Goat encouraged us that two nasty fords up ahead were running only knee deep, but warned that the mosquitoes were “pretty bad”.  Hmmm.  If even Billy Goat thinks they were bad, maybe….but we were determined not to get TOO mosquito-obsessed!

Finally we said goodbye to Billy Goat and Two-Stick Ken and hiked on to lovely McClure Meadow.  Wow!  It truly is spectacular!  It’s High Sierra at its best–dramatic rocky peaks, blue river, green meadows….beautiful, especially in the golden late afternoon light.  But we still had a ways to go before the second and final ford of Evolution Creek, which in early season is deep and very scary.  Not to worry–Billy Goat was right; it was just knee deep.  And the bottom was nice and rocky, not slippery smooth granite, so we just crossed shoes, socks and all, kept on going, and camped only about a quarter mile farther on where we spotted a flat place.  Billy Goat was also right about the mosquitoes–they were “pretty bad” but not outrageous, so we rigged the net tent and left our wet shoes outside to dry and our wet hiking pants draped over our packs to do the same.  It was a great day, and we had a good night’s sleep, after specially thanking the Lord for keeping Bill safe at Dusy Creek this morning!