June 7th, 2022 by Jon
We woke up to the sound of the creek near our tent, and it took a while to wake up. It felt like neither Singsong nor I slept well, and I think it was because our site was on more of a slant than we realized. Thankfully, it wasn’t really that cold, and we packed quickly so we could enjoy a nice hot breakfast. While we were eating, we read some of the comments about Glen Pass, which we were only a mile away from the top of. The best one called the last bit of trail to the top “the Ass-Blaster 3000”. Feeling slightly nervous but excited to get over another pass, we set out on trail around 6:30.
As the comment noted, the trail was very, very steep. It rose quickly, weaving past frozen lakes as we approached a granite wall. We could see where the wall dipped a little at the top, and we saw switchbacks rising up towards that point. There were also massive steps to climb as we went up. Each step made our quads groan, but we continued working our way to the top, albeit rather slowly. When we actually got to the top, the trail had amazing views of the valleys on either side of the pass. This pass, like many of the others, was covered in snow on the north side. It tends to get less sun during the day than any other direction, and so it lasts the longest.
We chose a few boot paths to follow and did our best to step carefully without slipping as we made our way across a steep slope. We switchbacked a few times, alternating between rock scrambling through snowless patches and walking across the frozen terrain. We worked our way down the mountain, feeling much better once we finished the first half-mile section, because then it wasn’t so steep. The snow itself was actually softer than we thought it would be, which we chalked up to the fact that it didn’t get nearly as cold as usual last night. We both post-holed a couple of times and banged up our legs on the rocks lurking beneath the snow. Singsong actually managed to cut her shin pretty badly, too.
We finally reached a stream, our first since leaving camp, and took a break to get some water and celebrate that we were finished walking on snow. That was our signal that the pass was completed, and we felt accomplished. We kept walking down the trail and started to see quite a few hikers going the other direction. We are sharing the trail with the John Muir Trail for the next few weeks, and it’s more common to go southbound when thru-hiking that trail, so we should see quite a few of them. We turned a corner and got our first glimpse of one of the Rae Lakes. They are a fairly popular chain of alpine lakes that lie in the basin just north of Glen Pass. They are all connected, and snowmelt flows from higher ones to lower ones through the valley. We wound our way down a cliff on a series of switchbacks and then followed a funny little trail that snaked through narrow strips of land separating various lakes. We turned a corner, crossed a stream by climbing over a few rocks and logs, and then saw our friends Biscuit, Raccoon, and Missile all sitting on the bank of a little lagoon. We joined them and celebrated getting up and over another pass.
We sat there for a while, eating, drinking, and recovering after our traverse. It had taken us nearly 2 hours to go 3 miles. This is why the Sierra section is so hard; the elevation and passes really slow down the mileage. A few hikers who passed by went swimming, but we didn’t. That water felt really cold. But it was incredibly beautiful, and we stayed there for nearly 45 minutes. Both Rune and Bouge caught up to us, and we had fun hashing out some of the more hairy parts of the pass. Finally, we felt like we couldn’t linger any longer, so Singsong and I headed out with Missile and Biscuit hot on our tails.
The next 2 miles would be some of the most beautiful hiking I’ve ever done. We continued snaking our way past insanely blue lakes that were so calm they reflected the snow-covered granite behind them like a mirror. There were small green beaches, and it was like walking through Wonderland. I wish we had enough food to take a zero there because if I did, I would have just stopped for the day and camped right there. Eventually, we got up on a ridge above a long, skinny lake and followed it for a long time. We passed a small ranger hut that was all boarded up, but I imagined it would be a beautiful place to live as a ranger for a summer.
We continued past the ranger station and walked past green grass, lots of large boulders, and a couple of meadows before coming to a 15-foot-wide creek. We carefully balanced and hopped our way across rocks and a log before jumping across the last bit, and we both managed to keep our feet dry. For the next 4 miles, we basically just followed the trail straight down the valley without any real switchbacks; it was just steep enough that we felt it in our knees. We had to cross 2 or 3 more streams on our way down; each time, we had to walk along the bank to find the best place to cross. The last half mile to the bottom, the trail flattened out a bit and walked through a massive, sort of damp pine forest. The air felt warm, smelled of wet earth and pine, and just felt so pleasant. I try to consciously be thankful each day on the trail for something, and those 15 minutes were my moment today.
We got to the bottom and came to an absolutely raging river. Thankfully, the park service built a wonderful suspension bridge over the river! We took a break just before the bridge to have lunch and enjoyed watching hikers cross it. Biscuit, Wilco, Missile, Singsong, and I all chilled there for a long time, enjoying the shade, because we had dropped down a few thousand feet, and it was a lot warmer down below. Raccoon was apparently busy catching a bunch of fish at the lakes up above. After over an hour of staying there, we began packing up to leave. Crossing the bridge was a cool experience; it was very bouncy and swayed more than I expected. There are signs to go one at a time, and now that I felt how much it moved, I understood why. If you had two people, all that movement would make the crossing somewhat dangerous.
We climbed up the mountain, and after a short hike, we passed the 800-mile marker! They feel a little less celebratory now, but are still pretty cool. We continued on, and the trail turned into a literal creek. The numerous streams flowing down the mountain completely flooded the trail, and we hopped from rock to mud patch and anything else that was a little drier to try to preserve our feet. Thankfully, we managed to do a pretty good job. Unfortunately, right after that, Singsong slipped on a rock and rolled her ankle pretty badly. We sat for a while so she could recover. Thankfully, it was pretty fast, but it does mean she will need some extra TLC tonight and maybe tomorrow too.
We crossed another raging river and found a small, very wet log to use to cross. We went very slowly but managed to make our way across without issue. We sat there on the other side for a while, taking a break because the trail had been pretty steep. We were already climbing up towards Pinchot Pass. While sitting there, we saw our first bear across the creek and walking through a rock field! It was very majestic-looking and seemed to pause to look at us before lumbering away. We were probably a solid 500 feet away with a steep canyon in between us, with a fast-flowing river, so no worries there. I actually managed to get a decent zoomed-in photo of it, so check that out below!
We climbed a few last miles up the mountain, and we just dragged like crazy. We were all pretty exhausted. This Sierra section has long stretches of uphill and downhill alternation, which is a lot harder on your body than when it switches back and forth more frequently. We felt like molasses, but we slowly made our way up the hill and reached a small creek, where I swear I saw a dark cloud rise out of the grass and fly towards us. We got absolutely mobbed by mosquitoes and had to literally run up the hill a little ways to get away from them.
We went another third of a mile up the trail and passed by a small lake that looked gorgeous in the evening sun. The lake was to the left and down below the trail, and to the right and up above was a large, flat dirt patch with a few trees, with some excellent tent spots. We decided to call it a day there. We set up our tent and filtered water, and in that time, I got 8 mosquito bites. I have been unfortunate my entire life to be an absolute mosquito magnet, and the ones here were no exception. I changed into pants, threw on my rain jacket, and covered my head with a bugnet, and that finally seemed to provide the protection I needed. We made dinner as a group in the middle of our tent camp and then enjoyed a hot cup of hot chocolate for dessert.
The sun went down right as we finished, and the temperature dropped rapidly after that. We put our stuff away, stashed our bear cans away from camp, and then retreated to our tents by about 7:45. Tomorrow, we are going to try to do a bigger day because we need to up the miles we are doing to make it to our next food stop in time. Hopefully, we can do both Pinchot and Mather Passes tomorrow. We will see how we do!
