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| JOHN MUIR TRAIL |
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| Part 2 |
| DAY 4 - Big day today: 18 miles up and over 11,056 foot Donahue Pass and out of Yosemite National Park. Easy first 9 miles of the day in Lyell Canyon. No mosquitos or bears, but some fresh scat and some howling coyotes. Nice lunch stop at Lyell Camp anticipating the big ascent up the pass after lunch. Great climb! Beautiful scenery and very little snow made our climb a breeze. We rock-hopped across a tricky creek crossing, lost the trail briefly over a few larger patches of snow and traversed one large snowfield near the top before we reached the incredible views at Donahue Pass; north into Yosemite and south towards Ansel Adams Wilderness. |
| Day 4 - Donahue Pass |
| Day 4 - 11,000 feet up Donahue Pass |
| Day 4 - Lyell Canyon, (Donahue Pass in background) |
| We continued on down to Rush Creek trail where the 3 creek crossings were easy (no wet crossings). Then an exhausting 500 foot climb over our last mile of the day to camp at windy Island Pass (10,200 ft). Stealth camp, no bears, I slept like a baby after a long day but the altitude affected Christy's sleep again. |
| DAY 5 - Chilly morning with ice on our tent fly and on the puddles on the trail. We hiked up and down between several picturesque alpine lakes with Thousand Island Lake being the highlight of the bunch. Half way through our day we decided to hike 1 mile down (nearly straight down!) to the River Trail in the canyon below the ridge on which the John Muir Trail was following. After a wet crossing of the San Joaquin River we headed off down the hot and dusty river trail towards Reds Meadows and a day off! |
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| Day 5 - Thousand Island Lake |
| The mosquitos were out in full force but listening to my walkman kept me dancing down the trail. After about 14 miles, near Devil's Postpile, we caught the "free" shuttle bus down to the Mammoth ski area where we easily hitched a ride the rest of the way down into Mammoth Lakes town and Motel 6. We took a night off in what felt like luxury: hot showers, HBO, pizza delivery, big bed...ahhh! Life only feels this good after being on the trail. Trail Magic! Super sweet. DAY 6 - Day off in Mammoth Lakes. Slept in and walked around town. Shopped at Vons where I talked to Jedi, who was planning a 7 day speed-hike of the entire John Muir Trail. Whew! |
| We lunched at Base Camp Cafe where we turned fast food into slow food before we hitched back up to the ski village and took the $5 bus back to Red's Meadows. The campground at Red's is a rip-off at $14 for car camping or hikers (although you can use the hot spring showers for free). So instead we saddled up our gear and hiked 3 miles to Red Cones where the mosquitos were thick but the sunset was amazing! |
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| Day 6 - Sunset on Red Cone |
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| DAY 7 - We hiked a tedious 15 miles today along a high ridge above Cascade Valley; a hot, up and down, mosquito-infested, mule crap-laden trail. Thank god for our walkmans and the beautiful breeze at our lunch break. I might recommend the lower, less tedious Cascade Valley trail with the very pleasant Fish Creek hot springs as an alternate route. We stopped for dinner at the picturesque Virginia Lake, where the mosquitos eased their attack long enough for us to enjoy a good dinner and a short nap. But then we continued on to camp for the night at Tully Hole where the mosquito-insanity reached its maximum during our hike. Any longer there and I'm sure I would have gone crazy. |
| The descent from the pass was long and tiring on weary feet but the alpine valley was lined with many nice meadows and lakes. |
| (How do you go to the bathroom with so many mosquitos around?!?) DAY 8 - 14 miles to Lake Edison and ferry to Vermilion Valley Resort (VVR). The morning of continued mosquito-madness was made ever more torturous by a hot climb to Silver Pass while wearing our jacket and pants as mosquito-armour. There was very little snow on Silver Pass and Silver Lake was bright blue in the gorgeous summer sun. Amazingly, the mosquitos disappeared past Silver Pass, making our descent to Mono Creek fast and peaceful. |
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| Day 8 - Silver Pass |
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| Day 8 - Silver Pass (10,900 ft.) |
| Day 9- Vermilion Valley Resort |
| We caught the 4:45 pm ferry at Lake Edison and 20 minutes later we were sipping our free beer at the friendly Vermilion Valley Resort. |
| DAY 9 - 0 miles. We decided to take a day off at the resort and adjust our hiking plans so that we could meet up with our friends in Las Vegas on time. This meant that we would miss several days of the JMT from Muir Pass to Crabtree Meadows, but since I had hiked that section of the trail a few years ago I wasn't really disappointed. We met several PCT thru-hikers at VVR, including Flatfoot, aka Gene the hiking machine, who was hiking the PCT for the Sunshine Foundation charity. We also ran into Dan and Sara Rufner from San Diego, whom I had hiked with on the PCT in 1996! Small world. We sat and talked over dinner and planned to meet up again in a few days in Bishop. |
| DAY 10 - Back on the trail. Another hot, sunny day of hiking in the California Sierras, but very few mosquitos today made for a much more enjoyable walk. We camped near the Muir Trail Ranch and nearby hot springs, but we were so exhausted after a long day that we never even went in the hot springs. DAY 11 - Another long day up and over Piute Pass on our way out to North Lake and beyond to Bishop. The morning began very nice with gorgeous hiking weather and beautiful scenery hiking up the Piute Creek canyon. But in the late afternoon, the mosquitos showed up again in large numbers and our long, gradual ascent of Piute Pass became torture. Thankfully once we reached the pass, the mosquitos had subsided and we camped just a mile or so beyond the pass beside one of several small crystal-clear alpine lakes. DAY 12 - We hiked the last few miles steeply down from Piute Pass past many day-hikers from North Lake where we hitched a ride 18 miles into Bishop. Motel Rancho Relaxo, a huge dinner and some cold beer made for a great evening in Bishop. DAY 13 - We met again with Dan and Sara for breakfast. They had completed there Sierra trek and were headed back home so we caught a ride with them to Lone Pine where we would get our Whitney climbing permits and finish our trek. |
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