Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: Days 5-8

Day 5 (8/9/19): Duck Lake Outlet to Squaw Lake Outlet (~10 miles)
Today we got a late start partially because I just did not want to get up and get moving. It was cold outside and the tent was nice and cozy. I finally got up and started packing while Dillon made breakfast (oatmeal w/ freeze dried blueberries) and he even delivered a vanilla latte to me in the tent! He’s a keeper for sure.

Side note: this was our first day drinking coffee on the trail because it was our first planned “hot breakfast” day. If we’re not boiling water for food in order to save time, we don’t think it makes sense to boil water for coffee. We took our time this morning with breaking down camp, refilling and filtering water, etc, and ended up hitting the trail around 10:30 am. Today’s hike basically went up, down, up, down, and up again. The rockier terrain had us missing the sandy trails of yesterday, but we were feeling strong. We passed Purple Lake (which was not purple) and then came to Lake Virginia where we stopped for lunch (PB&J on tortillas, plus pretzels for a snack). This spot was unreal. The pictures don’t nearly do it justice.

Dillon even got in the water for the first time on this trip and rinsed off a bit, but it was too windy and cold out of the water, let alone in the water, for me to consider joining him. From here, the trail made its final descent of the day before a grueling 2 miles uphill to Squaw Lake where we planned to camp for the night. It wouldn’t have been so bad had it not been for the swarms of mosquitoes following us uphill almost the entire way. I haven’t really mentioned the mosquitoes yet here but while these tiny vampires have been a staple for most of the past 5 days, nowhere were they as bad as they were today for those last 2 miles. Luckily we are wearing head nets, long sleeves, pants, and sun gloves, so we don’t have to worry too much about bites, but they are still so annoying! Once we finally reached Squaw Lake we were just about clear of the mosquitoes and a nice family (Carrie and Tom and their son who’s name I never caught) offered for us to camp near them as we were clearly looking for a spot. (Little did we know, they would influence us to change the course of our plan for the next few days!) After setting up the tent and chatting with the family, Dillon washed some of our dirty clothes near the lake while I made margaritas. Yep, I packed tequila and “pocket cocktails” margarita mix into each of our resupplies! We drank them while enjoying the sunset before jumping into our tent to get out of the cold.

We ate dinner in the tent (mac n cheese for me, pasta primavera for Dillon) which if that’s wrong then I don’t wanna be right. It’s cold out there and the tent is my favorite place to be! We cleaned up our dinner and were all snug in our sleeping bags by “hiker midnight,” aka 9 pm.

Day 6 (8/10/19): Squaw Lake to Vermilion Valley Resort (~9.5 miles)
This was probably the roughest morning so far. If you haven’t already guessed, I am not a morning person. On top of that, I woke up with a mysterious eye problem and a very runny nose. My left eye was hurting as if I had slept in my contacts, but I hadn’t. I’m not sure what happened, but I rinsed my eye out with water and wore my glasses in hopes that my eye would heal itself throughout the day and not get any worse. The very nice lady in the family camped next to us offered us some of their Peets coffee (grounds and a filter, such luxuries!) and powdered oat milk creamer which was amazing considering it was a bar-for-breakfast day and we hadn’t planned on making our own coffee.

The hospitality and kindness of complete strangers is one of my favorite things about the backpacking community.

After a leisurely morning breaking down camp, we hit the trail shortly after 10 am and began our 2 mile climb up Silver Pass. Since we got a head start up the pass yesterday, these 2 miles flew by and we soon began our 7 mile descent.

By the way, the snow on the pass is hardly worth mentioning after our section hike of the PCT last month, and we didn’t need to use our microspikes. With the amount of foot traffic on the trail, there were some very nice boot tracks up the small section of snow near the top of the pass which made it a breeze (however the northbound hikers seemed to be having a harder time than us going downhill on this snowy section). Our plan for the day was to hike to the Bear Creek Junction, almost 15 miles from Squaw Lake. But in the days leading up to this, we kept hearing people talk about a magical land called Vermilion Valley Resort (VVR). In planning for the JMT I had of course heard all about VVR but we had decided to resupply at Muir Trail Ranch (MTR) and so we didn’t think VVR would fit into our itinerary. This is where Carrie and Tom come in. They had asked us if we were planning on going to VVR as that’s where they were going today. In talking about Muir Trail Ranch with them, they said that they had heard it wasn’t very hiker friendly, there wasn’t any food for sale and the supplies they offer in their store are pretty limited, not to mention the lack of showers. We had heard similar things online, but their location worked better for our second resupply. Now, I felt that we would be missing out on all of these things if we didn’t stop at VVR, and we wouldn’t get such luxuries again until Day 15 at our third resupply in Independence. As we hiked towards Bear Creek Jct, all I could think about was VVR. We looked at the maps and figured we could make up the miles we’d be skipping today over the next few days, and decided to go for it. At one point we caught up to Carrie, Tom, and son and told them we would see them at the ferry. The 1.5 mile trail to the VVR ferry dock was about 8 miles from our campsite at Squaw Lake, and the ferry runs at 9:45 am and 4:45 pm sharp from the trail, across Lake Thomas Edison to Vermilion Valley Resort. Much like the other day hiking to Red’s, today we were in a hurry to meet this 4:45 pm deadline. We ended up getting to the dock around 4 pm and got to relax with the other hikers eagerly awaiting the ferry. Among the group was another family we had met at Red’s: a couple and their 6 and 8 year old boys from the UK, definitely the youngest hikers we met who were doing the entire JMT. We were starting to worry about Carrie and Tom before they finally arrived at the dock just in time. I was already feeling like the JMT was something out of Disneyland, perfectly created so that it looks real but is actually man-made. And if the JMT was Disneyland, this ferry ride to VVR was the Jungle Cruise.

The boat captain, Captain Paint, made the ride across the lake super entertaining, most likely for the young kids’ sake who were on board. Towards the end of the trip there was an osprey nest in the top of a tree which he stopped the boat to point out to us, and at that exact moment the osprey flew by and made a big sweeping turn, landing gracefully in its nest. We could not believe the perfect timing. Once we landed on the shore, we hobbled up to the store where Jim, the owner of VVR, greeted us new arrivees to explain how we could start a tab for the store/restaurant and where we could camp for free. Dillon and I wandered over to the campground, dropped our packs, and started to set up camp. We ran into Matt, a guy we had met at Red’s the other day, which was a fun surprise because we got to catch up and hear about some of our other trail friends we hadn’t seen since Red’s. After we got settled, we went to check out the store, pick up some supplies and pay for showers ($7 for 7 minutes) and laundry ($7 for one load!). Next we walked over to the restaurant for BBQ night.

Side note: later when we described VVR to another hiker she commented that it sounded like we’d seen a mirage, the way we described being whisked away on a ferry across a lake to a magical BBQ paradise. “Are you sure that really happened?” she asked skeptically. Lol. After a delicious dinner and fun conversation with a 70-something year old backpacking couple (goals), we enjoyed our 7-minute showers (so luxurious) and threw some laundry in before joining the crowd of fellow hikers around the campfire. Captain Paint was there with a cooler full of whiskey which he generously passed around the circle. We talked and laughed and had a great time all while making the mistake of trying to keep up with the drinking of a sailor. Eventually we stumbled back to our tent which we were grateful for for being so close to the campfire.

Day 7 (8/11/19): Vermilion Valley Resort to Bear Ridge Trail Junction (~7 miles)
After having too much fun around the campfire, that night in the tent was a bit of a mess. Almost immediately after getting into the tent, Dillon leaned out and threw up in the dirt, luckily (impressively?) all outside of the tent. Like I said, mistakes were made. This is what happens when you try to keep up with a sailor. After passing out, for some reason I woke up in the middle of the night in a panic thinking I was in the wrong tent. I searched frantically for my phone and used its light to see that everything was fine, and I went back to sleep. I went in and out of some pretty wild dreams which blurred with reality. I thought I had dreamed up a scraping noise outside of our tent, but when I told Dillon this he said he had heard it too. We decided someone must have come along and shoveled some dirt on top of his puke. Yikes. Lol. But I had a feeling this type of thing was a regular occurrence around here. That morning, we were suffering. I got up around 8:00 am and started to pack things up in hopes that we could make it down to the ferry in time for its 9:00 am departure. It was either 9:00 am or 4:00 pm, with no runs in between. I went to pay our tab at the store (we somehow spent over $100 in the short time we’d been there, it adds up quick), and buy some Pop Tarts for breakfast, and when I got back to the tent it was clear we were not in good shape to leave at 9. Dillon was doing his best to help pack, but he looked miserable. I knew that even if we made it to the ferry, we would be in no shape for a full day of hiking once we got back to the trail. So I told him to stop packing up, and we crawled back in the tent and went back to sleep. Once we finally emerged from the tent again around noon, our friend Tom was sitting at the nearby picnic table. In typical dad fashion, he jabbed at us “wow, when you guys take a day off you really take a day off.” We told him we were going to catch the next ferry out at 4 pm and he said “good thing the ferry schedule matches up with your personal schedule.” (Dillon and I got a kick out of this quote for the entire rest of the trip. If you’re wondering how we entertained ourselves on those long days of hiking together, one of the things we did was repeat to each other any funny thing we’d heard someone say in the previous days. We would be walking in complete silence, and then out of nowhere one of us would say “good thing the ferry schedule matches up with your personal schedule” and we would die laughing). We spent the remainder of our time at VVR eating lunch and then repacking our packs and bear canisters. At one point we had all of our food spread out on a picnic table, which the non-hikers staying at VVR found very amusing. Everyone walking by wanted to know what we were doing, how far we were hiking, what we were eating, etc. One lady picked up one of my repackaged meals of lasagna in a ziploc bag and asked “what’s this delicacy?” These people were all very nice, but we couldn’t help feeling like we were on display, or like a part of the attraction for those vacationing in the cabins onsite. We were ready and waiting at 4 pm when Captain Paint arrived to take us back to the trail.

One 45-minute ferry ride later, we were back on land and waiting for the next round of hikers to board the ferry so I could take a picture with whatever this lizard thing is.

After that, it was back to the trail. We wanted to at least make it to the Bear Ridge Trail Junction in order to stay somewhat on schedule, which involved hiking into the night (in the dark for about the last two hours). Not too far from the VVR trail junction, we came across an older man who was there waiting for his son, Brett. He asked us to keep an eye out for him as Brett was “late for dinner” at their meetup location and had no way of getting in contact with him. Dillon and I forged on, looking out for Brett, and hiked until we had gone about 7 miles and found a suitable campsite. We set up camp quickly, ate dinner, and called it a night.

Day 8 (8/12/19): Bear Ridge Trail Junction to Muir Trail Ranch (15 miles)
This morning we got up early (for us) and were on the trail around 8:30 am! I ate another Pop Tart for breakfast and Dillon ate a Pro Bar, as we had a big day planned and no time for a hot breakfast. But I’m not complaining about getting to eat Pop Tarts for breakfast. Our hike started with about 2 miles downhill and then about a 7 mile gradual climb up to Selden Pass. The hike up wasn’t too bad as it was only a 2,000 foot elevation gain over those 7 miles. Along the way we ran into a man who fit the description of Brett, who’s dad we had run into the night before. We asked if he was Brett, and he was! We were so excited that we’d found him and were able to pass along his dad’s message and location, and that he was okay. We had seriously started to worry about Brett. Another notable thing that happened on the way up was that we had to cross a couple of creeks where although there were rocks to skip, the water was high and we had to get our feet wet for the first time on the trip. Since we’re wearing non-waterproof boots, our shoes/feet pretty much dried out by lunch and it wasn’t an issue.

The last eventful part of the climb was towards the top of the pass, where we ran into probably the only person I would just rather never run into. We had heard ahead of time that this person was hiking the trail in the opposite direction and so we knew our paths would likely cross, but we didn’t know when. It was sort of funny though, because in the hiking world if you’re hiking uphill you have the right of way and those hiking downhill are supposed to step to the side to let you pass. So, she had to step aside as Dillon and I were hiking uphill to let us pass, which we found pretty karmically sweet. Glad that interaction is behind us and we won’t have to cross paths again!

After the pass, we hiked down and had a leisurely lunch break at the beautifully peaceful Heart Lake. I had cous cous with pine nuts and Dillon had ramen, plus some snacks (Snickers, fruit snacks, and Jolly Ranchers- have I mentioned how much I love the thru-hiking diet?) while we waited for the cous cous/ramen to cold soak (just add water and wait 15 minutes or so). Dillon fished and I filtered water, we ate, and then we hit the trail again, refreshed. We hiked another 6 miles down to Muir Trail Ranch where we will pick up our next resupply in the morning and made camp at the junction just above the trail down to the ranch. There are some hot springs nearby so we followed the trail to investigate, but we would have had to ford across the San Joaquin River to get there. We would have done it if it had been earlier in the day, but didn’t think it would be safe to ford back across in the dark so we decided against it. While we sat there by the river filtering our water, suddenly we noticed a deer coming towards us, fording the river! It was probably the coolest thing we’ve seen on this trip so far. Back at our campsite, we made breakfast burritos for dinner (dehydrated “breakfast skillet,” cooked, and put in a tortilla. I’m pretty proud of this idea, it was delicious). After our late dinner it was time to get ready for bed and rest up for another long day of resupplying and hiking ahead of us tomorrow.