Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: Days 9-12

Day 9 (8/13/19): Muir Trail Ranch to Evolution Creek (10 miles)
Today was our second planned resupply day, at Muir Trail Ranch (MTR). Since we had camped right at the junction just above MTR, we were able to amble down the trail just carrying our bear canisters and water bottles right when they opened at 8 am. We had heard some negative things about MTR, mainly that they were not very hiker friendly, however I’m happy to report that we had a good experience. The woman working there got us our bucket right away and she was friendly enough. They have trash cans, a spigot with drinking water, a power strip to charge your devices, a ton of organized and labeled hiker buckets to give to or take from, and a little store with all the essentials minus food stuffs. We spent a good amount of time unpacking our resupply, organizing our food into our bear canisters, and figuring out what we could get rid of and donate to the hiker buckets. We realized we were somehow short on tortillas, and found a ton of fresh tortillas in one of the buckets. Score! Then we bought some more Dr. Bronner’s soap, hand lotion (the hangnails are real over here), and mailed some postcards to our parents. There is no cell service but there is a computer in the store for $15 for 10 minutes, but I didn’t notice that sign until I had already used it to see if my work had posted the job I want to apply for, and there was no one working the store at the time, so, oops? Dillon went back up to our camp to start packing up while I waited for the phones to charge and talked with some other hikers. This group happened to all be from Sacramento as well, although they live in Montana/Colorado now. It’s such a small world! After joining Dillon and packing up, we hit the trail at 11 am. We crossed into Kings Canyon National Park shortly and from there the trail was pretty rough and rocky for the most part.

We took a long lunch break around 2 pm and washed our dirty clothes in the San Joaquin River (no soap, but still, don’t tell the rangers). We tried to clean ourselves too as best we could in the water and using our bandanas as washcloths. It’s amusing to me doing these primitive tasks together. While filtering water that we gathered from the river I asked Dillon if he wanted to churn some butter after this. Lol. Nearly 2 hours later we were back on the trail and hiking towards McClure Meadows. We had to stop once because nature was calling me, and then my toe was hurting and Dillon wanted to inspect it. I had noticed during our lunch break that my left big toe was swollen and inflamed on one edge of my toenail and looking concerning, so I cleaned it and added antibiotic ointment and bandaged it. When we checked it on the trail later it looked the same if not slightly better, so we did the first aid things again and carried on and prayed that it heals overnight. It was getting late once we reached Evolution Creek, but we made the decision to ford across and continue on until nightfall, since the water was only about ankle to calf-deep. Apparently the surrounding campsites are popular and many people had already set up camp for the night, but we finally found an open campsite just about a mile short of our goal for the day and decided to stop since it was getting dark. Dillon set up the tent while I started making a fire because the mosquitoes were especially awful and swarming us. At one point I looked over and they were literally covering the back of Dillon’s shirt. I swept them off and dramatically waved my arms around in a feeble attempt to make them leave us alone. Once we got the fire going I changed into my PJs, down jacket, and rain pants and emerged from the tent yelling at the mosquitoes, “try and bite through all these layers, bitches!” which I think effectively scared them away. We quickly ate dinner (lasagna for me, beef stroganoff for Dillon) by the fire, cleaned up, and escaped into the safety of our tent.

Day 10 (8/14/19): Evolution Creek to Muir Pass Shelter (11 miles)
First thing this morning I warily pulled off my bandaid to inspect my big toe, which showed no change. It was still a little swollen but hadn’t gotten any worse, so I decided I could live to hike another day. Dillon made us some oatmeal for breakfast while I started breaking down camp, collected and filtered water, went to the bathroom, fought mosquitoes, etc. It’s still amazing to me how long all of these morning activities take. We got on the trail at 9:45 am and were in for a long, gradual climb up to Muir Pass. Dillon wasn’t feeling well, so we took our time and stopped for a few extended breaks.

We had a nice lunch at the beautiful Evolution Lake, and continued up the pass.

There were a few patches of snow on our way closer to the top, but nothing crazy. The snow will be worse on our descent tomorrow down the pass, but will be easier in the morning than in the evening. Once we reached the top, it was almost 7 pm. After much discussion on the way up over whether we should continue on and look for a campsite after the pass, we decided to take shelter in the Muir Hut atop Muir Pass because it just didn’t seem safe to try to continue through the snow so late in the evening (again, if a ranger asks, we were taking emergency shelter, not camping here).

This is an emergency (e”muir”gency, if you will) shelter for hikers that was constructed in 1930, and it’s super cute. We set up our sleeping pads and bags on top of the stone benches and got cozy, excited not to have to worry about setting up our tent, or dealing with mosquitoes or the cold outside.

Just having all that extra space to spread out our stuff and our bodies was a luxury compared to being squished in our tent for the past 9 nights. Another bonus was getting to watch the sunset from the top of the pass, which of course was incredible.

We made dinner (pesto pasta w/ salmon for me-probably the best trail food I’ve had so far, and fettuccini alfredo for Dillon) and margaritas with the tequila and margarita mix from yesterday’s resupply. It’s a great night on the JMT!

Day 11 (8/15/19): Muir Pass Shelter to Palisade Creek (12.4 miles)
I pooped in a bag today. But I’ll come back to that in a minute. Staying in the shelter was a huge morale booster, and we woke up early and ready to go. Unfortunately for me, I also really had to go, if you know what I mean. We were at almost 12,000 feet elevation, and it would be a few miles before we got back down into the trees where I would be able to dig a proper cathole. All around the top of Muir Pass is just rocks. So, I had to use the “wag bag” that we’ve been carrying around in case we have to poop around Mt. Whitney, which is also of course above timberline. The wag bag consists of a bag containing, essentially, cat litter, and another bigger gray ziploc bag to put the bag of poop in. I concealed myself as best I could by crouching behind a large rock and made Dillon stand guard so he could tell me if any hikers were coming up either side of the pass. I’ll never forget the panic I felt, looking side to side (“head on a swivel” as my dad would say) while trying to do my business as fast as possible. This is the exciting life of a thru-hiker. With that out of the way, we got ready for the day and packed up (yes, including the poop bag). We ate protein bars and applesauce for breakfast and hit the trail at 8:30 am (wow, so good for us!) and immediately began walking through the first of several snowfields on our descent of the pass.

There were plenty of tracks to follow and since it was early the snow was nice and hard-packed, so it wasn’t too bad and we didn’t feel the need to use our microspikes. Taking careful steps through the snow, and having to keep finding the trail, however, made the first few miles of the day take longer than they normally would. Once we got out of there, it was mostly downhill for the rest of the day.

We stopped for lunch (cous cous/ramen) and I washed my hair (well, rinsed it without soap or anything) in the creek. The last time I washed my hair with shampoo was at VVR about 5 days ago, and this is the first time I’ve rinsed it since then. In 4 days we’ll get a real shower again at our next resupply stop, and we already can’t stop talking about it. After lunch we hiked on until we had gone about 12 miles for the day, wanting to get a little head start on the uphill climb we have awaiting us tomorrow as we will hike up and over Mather Pass. We made camp near Palisade Creek and did laundry (with soap this time, in our emptied bear canisters). Dillon surprised me by setting up the hammock, so we sat in it together and ate dinner (lasagna/noodles with chicken) before doing our nightly routine and settling into the tent. Since I don’t think I’ve shared the story of how we came to have a hammock on the JMT yet, here goes. While doing our final packing for the trip, we had all of our backpacking gear strewn about my dining room. We had our lists of what we planned to bring, but we were still making edits up to the last minute about what to/what not to bring. I was undecided about the hammock and kept going back and forth, so at one point I put it in my backpack. Eventually I decided not to bring it. Fast forward to Day 1 on the trail, unpacking our packs at the end of the day. Guess what? Apparently I’d forgotten to actually take the hammock and its straps out of my pack. So there we were, at our first campsite, past the point of no return, with the hammock. We had a good laugh about it then and for the rest of the trip. “Remember when you accidentally brought a hammock?” Lol. I learned my lesson about triple checking my pack, the hard way.

Day 12 (8/16/19): Palisade Creek to Between Palisade Lakes and Mather Pass
Today we got an early enough start to our morning that we were eating a hot breakfast of oatmeal and coffee by 8 am!

By now I had started looking over both Elizabeth Wenk’s JMT guidebook, and the Guthook app either in the morning, at night, or both to be prepared for the next day’s hike and to make a more detailed plan for each coming day. I want to make sure we are staying on schedule, especially after our detour to VVR, since we have a strict deadline for when we need to be home. We need to finish the JMT on August 23rd in order to be in San Francisco on August 24th. My sister doesn’t know it yet, but her girlfriend Nicole is proposing to her on the 24th! Both of our families will be there and I don’t want to miss it! Anyways, according to the guidebook today we’d be hiking up the “Golden Staircase,” a series of steep switchbacks made up of rocky steps that supposedly feels like twice the amount of miles it really is. With this daunting landmark section of the JMT looming over us, we were slightly nervous about this day. Walking through the areas leading up to it, marked by many downed trees, I couldn’t stop checking Guthook to see how close we were. It was unclear where it began, and I couldn’t help thinking there should have been some kind of sign: “now entering the Golden Staircase,” after all the hype I’d heard about it. There was no sign. Nevertheless we were eventually climbing up what resembled a winding staircase made of rocks.

While it wasn’t as difficult as we were expecting, it was probably one of the warmest days so far and the section was almost completely exposed. We took water breaks in what little shaded spots we could find and picked our way up the mountain. The climb continued past wherever the Golden Staircase ended and we eventually stopped for a break near the Palisade Creek Waterfall. As we added water to our cous cous/ramen, a few northbound hikers walking by told us we were almost to the Palisade Lakes, so we decided to pack back up and continue to the lake, as our food would be done cold-soaking and ready to eat by the time we got there. The lake was so relaxing and I was so exhausted from the day’s hike that I curled up right on the hard ground and took a quick power nap after lunch.

Eventually we had to get going again and we continued our hike towards Mather Pass. We had originally planned to get over Mather today, but it was clear as we got closer that that wasn’t going to happen. With the amount of snow on the trail, it seemed safer to get as close as we could and set up camp so we’d be able to get over the pass first thing in the morning. We ended up camping about a mile short of Mather Pass and calling it an early night.