One year later...

So last August, my rad friends Matt and Molly invited me to join them for the final leg of their epic 220 mile hike of the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Sadly, I wasn't able to hike all the way to Mt. Whitney with them, as I strained a muscle along the way, but I did spend two days and three nights with them on the trail (and two days by myself), and had a blast.


I kept a bare-bones journal during the hike, meaning to eventually post it here.  And so, in its not-so-entirety, it is.




8/12/2009
I'm sitting in a teeny little campsite somewhere near Baxter Creek on the JMT in Kings Canyon...  The scenery is stunning, though it's freezing up here (somewhere shy of 10,000').  Molly is making breakfast, and I have a little time, so I thought I'd write about my first two hiking days.


Day 1
Taboose Pass to the JMT junction.  The trailhead was somewhere in the neighborhood of 5K', and the pass was at 11,360'...  6K of elevation gain in 8 miles.  I was dying.  Hiking that trail ranks somewhere in the top 5 hardest things I've ever done.  It was beautiful--the trail tracked a creek up into the mountains--and the eastern faces of these Sierra peaks are ruggedly stunning.  By the end of the first hour, though, I was already wondering what I had gotten myself into.  I started in scrub desert at 6:30 AM, and didn't make it to the top until late in the afternoon--sometime between 6 and 7.  Twelve hours to walk 8 miles.  Geez.


Matt found me when I was near the top, and generously traded his very light pack for mine so that we could make it down to meet Molly before dark.


It was so good to see them both...  We ate and chatted for a while, and hiked another .5mi or mile to a camp site near some unnamed lake.  


I didn't sleep well, and woke up wanting at least a couple more hours of Zs...  But we had to eat and pack, and get on the trail.  It was a beautiful way to wake up, though.


Day 2
Just shy of Lake Marjorie to Baxter Creek...  We crossed Pinchot Pass pretty early in the day, and it was excruciating, but getting to the top, with the glorious view, was reward in itself.  Then it was back downhill, to the tune of 4,000' over a few miles.  So my uphill muscles got all used up on the first day, and my downhill muscles on the second--


We camped uphill from Baxter Creek this night; we sat around the campfire for a while and slept under the stars.  


Oh!  And we crossed this crazy suspension bridge in the afternoon.  It was a highlight.


Day 3
Above Baxter Creek to Lake Charlotte.  Matt and Molly have been stellar.  I know I'm only slowing them down, but they have not stopped encouraging and helping me to adjust.  They pretty much rock, and I'm so glad they invited me along.


Today we passed some beautiful lakes.  As I write this, we are perched above Rae Lakes, taking a nap/swim/shower/laundry break before we tackle Glenn Pass, which is no joke.  Matt is sleeping, Molly just finished painting a postcard of the view, and I wrote some poetry.




8/13/2009
I'm sitting on a rock in the sun, surrounded by loveliness on every side, in the middle of a mid-morning break. I split up with Matt and Molly a little while ago, but I'll get to that.  First,


Day 3, cont'd
We left Rae Lakes after a few hours; Matt and I took a dip, Molly grabbed a shower, and we all did a little laundry.  


It was so pretty there.


We had to make it up and over Glenn Pass that afternoon, though, so I led the slow trudge up to 12K'.  I know my snail's pace was killing M & M, but they had nothing but encouraging words.  Yup, they rock.


The pass was incredible--this narrow spine of rock, with not-quite-sheer, but intimidating, drops on either side.  It truly felt as though we were sitting on top of the world.  


I ate my first Slim Jim in years up there, much to Matt's delight.


We climbed down from the pass, and, since there was no water closer, had to hike all the way down to Charlotte Lake.  This turned out to be the best "bad thing" ever:  Not only did we catch a cutoff down to the lake (on a ranger's good advice), we also ran into our resupply guy quite fortuitously in the evening, meaning that we did our food exchange early, plus got to hang out with Doug and his friend Mike for the night.  


And, miraculously, there was a group camped nearby that had packed their supplies--to include a kitchen and a cook--in on mules, and we got to finish off the leftovers of their amazing beef stew, biscuits, and salad.  It was fabulous.  Last night was also one of the peak nights of the Perseid meteor shower, and it was a beautiful night for stargazing.  We lay there for a while, "oohing" and "ahhing" at the shooting stars before eventually falling asleep.


And, wondrously, it wasn't too cold.


Day 4
This morning, we woke up, had breakfast, gave some of the resupply back to Doug to pack out, and headed out.  I wasn't sure if my hip was going to make it--today is a 16mi day for Matt and Molly, and tomorrow, too.  There was talk of taking an extra day to finish the hike, but I know Matt didn't want to do that.  So I walked with them to the junction of the JMT and the Lake Charlotte trail, but I knew I was only going to slow them down--plus, I didn't want to be in pain for the rest of the trip, either.


So I decided to hike out at Kearsarge Pass, and hopefully I'll be back at my truck--or at least to Independence--by tonight.




Epilogue
I made it up and over Kearsarge in decent time, even though, in addition to a painful muscle strain, my knee also started to ache badly on the downhill side.  Two ladies on a day hike up to the pass and back kindly gave me a ride to my truck at the end of the day, and I drove back to San Diego that night.


I have to say, I was pretty proud of myself, even though I didn't finish.  Matt and Molly couldn't have been better trail companions, and I'll always be grateful that I was able to tag along, and my first big hike will always be a standout memory.