Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: Days 13-16

If you’ve been reading my trail journals so far, most of what you’ve read is what I actually wrote on the trail, with some incomplete days here and there that I filled in later. Unfortunately by this point in the trail I was either too tired or my phone battery was too low from checking the Guthook app every 5 seconds, to get any writing done at all. So from here on out (days 13-19) I’ll be writing from memory a full 9 months later. But stick with me. Because all 3 of those meltdowns I mentioned having on trail in my first blog post, happen in these next 7 days. Hereee we go!

Day 13 (8/17/19): Palisade Lakes to Pinchot Pass

I woke up after having some pretty vivid dreams about my family. Like I said, it’s currently 9 months later but I can replay those dreams I had in my head to this day as if they were a movie I’d watched. One dream involved thwarting someone who was trying to kill my dad at my grandma’s funeral because my dad had figured out they were trying to steal my late grandma’s money. (So crazy. Can anyone tell me what this means?) In the next dream, it was my mom’s birthday and we were eating every kind of cake imaginable because she couldn’t decide which one she wanted. So clearly by day 13 I was missing my family, as well as cake, pretty badly. I was looking forward to having cell service at our next resupply stop in Independence on day 15. But for the time being I was at least able to message my parents from our Garmin app before getting up and ready for the day. After packing up we were soon hiking our final stretch up to Mather Pass. This was a tough climb that involved more rock scrambling than any of the passes so far. Sections of the trail as we got closer to the top of the pass were also covered in snow, which left us doing some route-finding and decision-making between finding/following tracks in the snow or scrambling over rocks to avoid the snow. Suddenly another hiker appeared who was making this whole scrambling situation look easy compared to my honestly slightly freaked out self. We recognized him as a dude we’d met at VVR several days ago. We followed him for a little while and got caught up- he told us he’d met some people at the Palisade Lakes who gave him acid and he had a crazy trip where he felt like he aged several years and each lake taught him some wisdom as he hiked past them. These were his words. He had a lighter backpack and was moving faster than us (maybe that was also the drugs?) so we said see ya later and he took off ahead of us. We couldn’t remember his name so Dillon and I referred to him as Billy Goat from that point on due to his rock scrambling skills. Have I mentioned we like to give people secret trail names behind their backs? Reaching the top of Mather Pass was a pretty great feeling. It was a tough one and we were rewarded with the view from the top.

I met a couple fellow Ladies of the JMT who noticed my teal bandana and we had a nice chat before Dillon and I started our descent. According to Guthook, “Mather Pass often ranks as one of the most fear-inducing due to the steep headwall on the south side of the pass.” This sentence had been freaking me out all day. I’m not the greatest with heights and I was envisioning myself falling to my death from whatever a headwall is. In reality, the trail down was pretty steep and narrow, but it was really not that scary. We hiked downhill for about 5 and a half miles before heading uphill another 4 and a half miles to Pinchot Pass. To stay on schedule, we really needed to get over Pinchot. Along the way the trail passed by the most turquoise water I’ve ever seen, Lake Marjorie.

About halfway up we thought we could see where the top was, but once we reached that point we could see where the actual top was and that we weren’t quite there yet. Around this point we ran into our first ranger so far on the trail which was kinda fun. He just asked us where we were headed for the night and then we continued on. It was a hard slog but we pushed ourselves up and over our second pass of the day. We were DONE and wanted to set up camp as soon as possible. It turns out there aren’t any campsites for a ways after Pinchot Pass, but we were desperate and finally found a not-so-great-but-good-enough previously established campsite about a mile down, near Woods Creek.

Day 14 (8/18/19): Pinchot Pass to Rae Lakes

The plan for today was to hike about 12 miles to get as close as possible to Glen Pass and camp near Rae Lakes (a beautiful and popular camping/backpacking destination in and of itself). We wouldn’t be hiking over any passes today so it should have been a relatively easy day starting with a descent followed by the ascent to Rae Lakes. But I still managed to have my first meltdown of the trip on this day, day 14. I’ll get to that in a minute. Somewhere along the descent from our campsite, we stopped to refill our water bottles at one of the clearest streams of water I have ever seen. From the looks of it, we felt like we were almost wasting our time even filtering it, but with my background in food safety I will always filter my water no matter what. Better safe than sorry! While we were here we met two other southbound hikers who happened to be on a similar schedule as us yet we somehow hadn’t crossed paths with them until now. We made small talk as the four of us filtered our water and ate some snacks. From there I followed Dillon across a quick log crossing and then we were back on the trail. While we walked we nicknamed these two guys “The Bros” because they seemed like your typical football player, frat-bro looking dudes. They were super friendly and I don’t mean this in a bad way, but they were bros. The Bros were faster hikers than us and soon passed us up on the trail before we again caught up to them where they were stopped at a suspension bridge. This is one of those bridges that sways slightly when you walk on it and only one person is supposed to cross it at a time. They snapped a picture of me and Dillon in front of the bridge before everyone decided that I should cross first for some reason.

Did I mention my fear of heights and bridges? Well, I made it across! It was actually pretty cool. Once we were all across, a couple of young-looking hiker girls approached us asking if we had any glue or duct tape. One of their shoes were completely falling apart. We spent a little while talking to them about what to do and what their options were in terms of side trails for exiting the trail and getting into a town where she could get new shoes. Luckily someone came along (this cute father-daughter duo who were clad in all blue/all orange respectively) who had glue and graciously gifted it to the girl. Dillon and I continued on and still to this day we wonder about how Shoe Glue Girl is doing. From this point on we were hiking uphill and it was a pretty warm day. We kept having to stop to readjust the solar panel that was attached to my backpack which we were using to keep our devices charged. The last time we had been able to charge our phones using power outlets was at MTR 5 days prior, but besides that we had been using the solar panel pretty consistently over the rest of the trip to keep our power banks charged. After walking and stopping in the heat every few minutes so Dillon could readjust the solar panel contraption, I finally snapped. “Can we just take a break from using the solar panel! I’m tired of stopping every 5 seconds!” “But we need to charge our stuff.” “I don’t care! We can charge it later!” “Ok let’s take a break.” I dropped my pack and stomped over to the nearest creek. I was hot so I decided to literally and figuratively cool off by sitting in the water. Then I was cold. I let out a few tears of frustration because I felt like I just couldn’t win. Dillon got some lunch ready for me and once I ate some cous cous and beef jerky, I was starting to feel better. I think I was a mixture of hangry, hot, and in desperate need of a shower. The last time we had showered was at VVR 8 days earlier. That’s a long time without a shower and I think we both were feeling it. After my dramatic meltdown, and our first and only “fight” if you can even call it that, we got moving again with the motivation that tomorrow we would get to take a real shower. After another few miles uphill we were rewarded with the views of Dollar Lake and Arrowhead Lake, and finally with the most beautiful and perfect campsite near Rae Lakes, complete with a bear box.

It was so nice being able to store our food in the bear box and have our breakfast setup safe and ready to go for the next morning. We set up camp, ate dinner, and settled in for the night.

Day 15 (8/19/19): Rae Lakes to Mt. Williamson Motel

We woke up early today and after choking down a Mountain House “breakfast skillet” breakfast burrito we were on the trail around 7:30 am!

Today was another resupply day which meant it was a deadline day. We had to be at the Onion Valley trailhead by 3 pm to catch the shuttle to the Mt. Williamson Motel in Independence where we were resupplying and staying the night (hence, showers!) The first order of business was hiking up and over Glen Pass. This was a tough one, let me tell you. As always there were others on the trail and we made conversation with a guy from Berkeley who graciously took a picture of me and Dillon with Glen in the background.

The mountain is a bit cut off because Dillon’s phone’s screen brightness was turned way down to conserve battery. The poor guy couldn’t even see what he was trying to take a picture of, but he was a good sport. In the picture you can see the snow field in the upper left where the trail cuts across just before taking you to the top of the mountain. There were patches of snow but mostly rocks on the way up until the snow field, which had easy-to-follow tracks from previous hikers. Not to mention, the snow was high enough on either side of the tracks that if you did slip, the walls of snow would break your fall.

Once we reached the top, I was a little disappointed that we didn’t have more time to stay and enjoy the view.

But we were on a tight schedule and we didn’t know what would happen if we missed our shuttle. We hurried down the pass until we reached the junction to Kearsarge Pass/Onion Valley. We were somehow under the impression that this would be an easy/flat hike out to Onion Valley. I don’t even really know why we thought that but it was lies. I was feeling dehydrated and hot and that breakfast skillet was not sitting well with me. I kept having to stop for breaks in the shade and with no water in sight on the trail I was starting to mildly freak out about the possibility of us running out of water. I also started panicking about our 3 pm deadline. I finally broke down into meltdown #2, crying and telling Dillon I didn’t think I could keep going and freaking out that we weren’t going to make it because of me. I was hot, thirsty, and hungry. At one point I exclaimed almost jokingly, “I can’t go any further! I’m malnourished!” Bless his heart, because he knows exactly how to comfort me and empower me to keep going. I wiped my tears and pressed on. From then on, he kept giving me encouragement the rest of the way up Kearsarge Pass, telling me to keep going, we were almost there, and I could do it. After a while that got a little old and he was starting to sound like a broken record, to the point where I realized he was probably saying those things as much for himself as he was for me, so I didn’t say anything. (He later confirmed my suspicions by thanking me for not getting annoyed with him, because he needed it too.) Eventually we came across a trickle of water crossing the trail that was flowing enough to fill our water bottles, and we hydrated ourselves for the final stretch of switchbacks to the top of the pass.

We finally made it at around 1:15 pm which left us just under 2 hours to hike the remaining couple miles of switchbacks down to the trailhead. These miles felt neverending as we weaved our way down the mountain, eventually catching glimpses of roads, cars, and finally the parking lot. We were so excited to see signs of civilization and we couldn’t stop talking about the foods and drinks we missed and would soon be able to have. Time was ticking and as we approached 3 pm, we were not quite down the mountain yet. Luckily Dillon caught sight of the shuttle and was able to wave at the driver desperately enough that he waited a few extra minutes for us to arrive. We had been hurrying down the trail but by this point Dillon was RUNNING and flailing his arms at the van. It must’ve been quite a sight. We piled our backpacks, trekking poles, and grimy bodies into the van along with a few other hikers. It was weird to be in a car for the first time in over 2 weeks. Once we reached the motel, we went eagerly to the office where Emmaleigh checked us in. As a nutrition professional in real life I appreciated the fact that she asked if we had any dietary preferences (they serve a home-cooked complimentary breakfast for hikers). We went straight to the room to plug in our phones to charge since they had both died today and my mom was expecting to hear from us around 3:00. I was so dirty and tired that I sat right on the floor next to the outlet to talk to my parents on the phone, and then to check in on Facebook and Instagram for the rest of my friends and family. I had shipped our final resupply bucket with food, toilet paper, wipes, etc here, and they had it waiting in our room along with laundry baskets with our names on them (so cute).

We finally got to SHOWER! Omg. This shower was life-changing. Just look at how dirty my hair was beforehand:

Afterwards I put on some loaner clothes that the motel provides and took all of our dirty laundry in the baskets to the front desk to be washed. The next order of business was food. We asked Emmaleigh at the front desk for recommendations and she suggested the taco truck. Really, that was one of maybe two or three options in this tiny town but I think it was the right choice. We had just enough cash for a couple of taco plates and jarritos, and I can honestly still taste how satisfying that meal was, especially after the day we’d had.

Next we explored the two gas stations in town and picked up some gatorade, snacks, candy, ice cream sandwiches, bandaids, shampoo, etc. Convenience stores have never been so exciting.

It was pretty cool that everything we needed (food, gas stations, motel) were all within walking distance along the main street. Back in the motel room, we started to go through our remaining food supplies and organize the new stuff from our resupply/the gas stations to figure out what we needed for the remaining 4 days on the trail. We were able to throw some things away and donate some to the hiker buckets in the lobby. We bought postcards and wrote to our parents. Emmaleigh brought us our laundry when it was done and we were able to get a little organized, packed, and ready for the next day. We drank some wine, relaxed, and thoroughly enjoyed sleeping in a real bed.

Day 16 (8/20/19): Mt. Williamson Motel to Vidette Meadows

Getting out of bed, a real bed, was HARD today. But as I mentioned earlier, our stay at the Mt. Williamson Motel included a complimentary breakfast and that turned out to be enough motivation for us to get up. Plus, we were excited to get to take one more shower before our last few days on trail. We got mostly packed up before heading next door for breakfast. They have a room that is essentially the kitchen and dining room all in one and breakfast is family style, with the owner Lauralyn taking orders and preparing breakfast for each hiker. We feasted on eggs, English muffins, bacon, fruit, juice, and coffee. Everything was delicious, especially after eating trail food for so long. There were a couple of PCT hikers and another couple of JMT hikers around the table who we had a good time chatting with. The other JMT couple were very similar to us in terms of personality/mannerisms, just older, and Dillon and I felt like we were seeing our future in them. Before we knew it it was time to catch the shuttle back to the trail.

Emmaleigh took a picture of us in front of the mountains, and then drove me and Dillon to the Onion Valley trailhead where we used the bathrooms with a pit toilet one last time before heading back into the wilderness. Our stay at the Mt. Williamson Motel was one of the biggest chunks of our budget for the whole JMT, but it was worth every single penny. Although our packs were heavier from our resupply, we felt refueled, refreshed, and ready to tackle the last leg of the trip.

We would be heading back up and over Kearsarge Pass today to rejoin the JMT where we had left it the day before, but this time we were in no hurry. This is a popular local trail for both day hikers and backpackers, and there were several other hikers out on the trail as we wound our way up the switchbacks. There was one group of day hikers in particular that we kept leapfrogging (they would stop and take a break and we would pass them, and then they would catch up to us and pass us, and so on). At one point we noticed that a couple of them were cutting switchbacks (taking shortcuts between switchbacks by walking off-trail) which is actually illegal and highly detrimental to the fragile landscape of this area in particular. We saw them cut through a clearly marked restoration site and that was the final straw. Dillon yelled at them to stay on the trail. They tried to defend themselves and argue back that they were taking a shortcut or something, so I said “Well that’s illegal. Stay on the trail.” Not long after this interaction, we came across a ranger named Rachel. She was the first one to ask to see our permit and sign and date it. We were still making conversation when along came the group of day hikers, cutting switchbacks once again. Luckily Ranger Rachel witnessed it this time and gave them a warning. Once they passed by, Dillon let her know we’d already seen this group do that multiple times. When she heard they’d walked through a restoration site, she was not happy. We continued on and had stopped to filter water when Ranger Rachel came along and approached us about getting Dillon’s name and phone number as a witness because she was going to issue the hikers a ticket. A little while later we ran into her once again and this time she wanted a signed, written statement so she wouldn’t have to bother us again (we wouldn’t have cell service for another few days anyways). Dillon wrote out a statement and thus we became official snitches to a park ranger. What an eventful morning. After the group got their ticket, they were not happy with us. They seemed to take the instructions to stay on the trail ultra-literally and took their breaks sitting or standing smack dab in the middle of the narrow trail.

Whenever we needed to pass them they would barely move out of the way. But we just said “excuse me!” and smiled at them as we passed. We all eventually made it to the top of Kearsarge Pass where Dillon and I were able to take our time, eat, and enjoy the view of the Kearsarge Lakes.

From there we hiked past Bullfrog Lake, down and back to the junction to the JMT and on towards our planned destination for the night- Vidette Meadows. This area was full of campsites tucked into the trees and we spent some time trying to find the best one. We chose one with a fire ring near a creek so we’d have easy access to water. After setting up the tent and getting a fire going to try and keep the mosquitos away, we set up the hammock once again and sat in it together while we ate dinner. This ended up being one of my favorite nights on the trail. There’s nothing like cuddling in a hammock by the campfire, surrounded by the wilderness.