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| Atop the 'Golden Staircase'. |
June 13th, Day 20. I made 38.25 miles.
Just about 1.5 miles from the Muir Trail Trance or Muir Ranch turn
off at mile 857, at point 0335912E 4121206N. I stopped at about
10:45pm or so. Lets see. There was...uhh yeah... It was an
average-ish day I'd say. Mid-day I was totally hating life{Hah}.
Although it was really pretty. I had to go up a huge up, but uhh.
Lets see. Well I'm at 857 miles, If I had made it to 860, that would
mean I'm averaging 43 miles a day on the nose even now overall. So
I'm just slightly under 43 miles a day on day 20, that's including
most of the Sierras too. So, that's even still ahead of the record,
so good job me. It sucks. I started off towards - just over Mather
pass by about 1-1.5 miles or so, more or less at tree line. I got up
pretty early actually, I left by about 6:15am. The Palisade lakes and
stuff were really pretty. The Golden Staircase - I was hitting that
with the valley below completely light, but I was more in the shadow,
so I think I got some good photos of that. There were a bunch of deer
here and there hiding out in the willows and things. Let's see,
anything remarkable? No, pretty much an easy down, just uhhh, weaving
your way down the valley. Then I hit the ummm, is it the Kings River?
Shoot, whatever. There is a trail intersection when you start
 |
| Few miles before Middle Fork Kings River. |
heading
up next to a river towards Muir Pass, which is a looonng up. Well the
majority of the first part isn't so bad. There are a few steeper
sections that get ya, but getting to the pass itself with no snow is
a pain. That trail just winds all over the place. I mean with snow at
least you can cut a straight path, sure it'd be a little steeper, but
is much faster. When you finally get up to where the snow starts
again - there wasn't much on trail per se, but it was kind of a mix
of mud and water on trail, so it was not as fast as basically walking
across snow because you're dodging 3 inches of water and mud, then
you hit a patch of soft snow and post hole. So there are some
disadvantages to having it be 'snow free'. I got up to the hut at
about 2:30pm or so. I mean I pretty much saw no one all day. I saw 3
people at that trail intersection at the Kings river...no the San
Joaquin River?? Shoot, I don't know. One of those rivers. I don't pay
attention to my maps anymore. Then I passed 2 people on the way to
the top, up Muir Pass. That was it for the first half of that day. I
ate lunch, took a bunch of pictures {at Muir Hut}, and then strode
off across the snow less plain dodging the trail which was a creek in
most places, down towards Sapphire and Evolution Basins, or the
Evolution Lakes. I saw 4 other people there that had just popped up
and over from the East side of the Sierra. I'm assuming by Bishop,
over Sapphire Pass I believe. They were pretty stoked. I kept on
truckin', but had to take a break. I was definitely pondering why the
hell I'm doing this. I just get tired, I am tired and hungry. I've
noticed that I've lost a lot of
 |
| Climbing up to Muir Pass. |
weight. At first my pants were tight
- I mean they could have loosened up over the use of 20 days, the
elastic and such, but now I have to use a belt. I mean they don't
just fall off me, but they are loose. I have no butt. There is
literally nothing there. I can feel the back side of my hips when I
reach around my back, which is...I don't know, it's not right. It's
nothing I've ever noticed before, and it might be there normally, but
it's definitely more prominent. So yeah, I sat down for probably
about 10 minutes and just tried to get it though my head - what am I
doing, how far do I have to go, what's going on, blah ba blah ba
blah. We'll see. I might get off, might try and make it to the half
way point, I think the half way point would be a good jumping off
point, ya know it's half the trail, it's a set place, it's not like
it's just bailing out. We'll see. After I got up after that, I felt a
little OK. It was all downhill from Muir Pass, or mostly, there was
the flat part. Down past Evolution Lakes, down towards the Evolution
Valley, I met or passed like 6 more people. Once down into the
Evolution Valley, ohh man the mosquitoes were bad. They were even bad
on the downhill. So I just kinda booked it. I listened to
 |
| Muir Hut at Muir Pass. |
my audio
book "Hyperion" and didn't really pay attention to much. I
got to the creek crossing, Evolution Creek crossing, it was soo low.
It didn't even come up to my knees. So that's like 2 - 2.5 feet
maybe. But I stopped there and the mosquitoes were so bad!!! For the
30 seconds it took me to strip off my gaiters, socks and shoes from
both feet, I had to smack my legs multiple times, and each time I
probably killed 10 mosquitoes. I got across, and tied to make it to
the point where I have that one photo of Evolution Creek at sunset,
and I think I was probably 10-20 minutes too late to miss the same
exact same conditions I got in 2009, which I was bummed about.
Because it would have been nice to get it with my new camera, or my
point and shoot, because it has a slightly wider lens. But O'well. I
 |
| Evolution creek just after the crossing. |
got down to the bottom of there and kinda trucked along the flats
next to the river until it was dark and I was tied and hungry and I
didn't feel like trying to make it to my 860, which was my goal. So I
ended 3 miles short. O'well. I still made it 38, which is still 2
miles over what I had expected/planned. So on schedule definitely.
I'm supposedly going to have to pick it up from Reds Meadows to
Tuolumne, I guess my schedule says I'm supposed to do 45, but I don't
care {laughs}. So now my plan is to basically do at least 2 more 38's
that means it's a 10 into Tuolumne in the next morning. Otherwise I'd
have to do 2 42.5 and make it there late at night, camp, then wait
until like 9 in the morning to get the post office. So, that wouldn't
be bad to sleep in, but I don't think I can do 2 42's. So I might as
well just do a 38, get close to Reds Meadows so I can get up early
and get through the possible detour and construction shit and bust
out a relatively good day and camp out above the mosquito valley on
top of Donahue Pass and book it in, in the morning.
 |
| Lake Helen before just before Muir Pass. |
