June 9th, 2022 by Jon
We woke this morning, and it was already pretty warm. Like, fairly comfortable in shorts at 6:00am, warm. That was somewhat spooky considering we basically go uphill all day and then have a very snowy pass to go over. But what can you do besides just accept it and move on? We packed up and got moving pretty quickly, we wanted to get to the pass without any huge delays so that snow was as good as it could be once we crossed.
The trail continued through pine forests, and it was absolutely serene this morning. The trail was fairly flat, and we meandered through bits of forests, came alongside meadows, and then back into forests again. We had amazing views of the granite mountains with the Middle Fork of the Kings River in the foreground. The water was crashing through the valley, and at times, Singsong and I couldn’t hear each other unless we were right next to each other. At one point, we saw a group of deer grazing at the edge of the meadow, watching from the trees. A mile later, we turned a corner around a bush and startled a deer that was wandering around a tent site just off the trail. She looked at us with that deer in the headlights look, and we carefully moved past her, trying to prevent her from feeling trapped.
We passed over many small creeks, and the ground was damp with all the water everywhere. Unfortunately, that also means mosquitoes everywhere, so we just didn’t take a break for a while. When we did, it was in a dry spot in direct sunlight, and while there were some, it wasn’t too bad. I did manage to kill 26 while sitting there, though. So maybe kinda bad. We began a gentle uphill climb and generally stayed within 100 yards of the river. We continued through a mixture of meadows, pine groves, and stone fields working our way back out of the valley. There were numerous creek crossings that required a bit of a balancing act to get across, but we did so without too much hassle.
After a while, the climb grew more serious as we stepped up rocky staircases, traversing the same terrain as this morning, just with elevation. The trees became smaller as we went up, and there were tons of waterfalls high above us pouring into the valley. The switchbacks became steep and lasted about 2 hours. The temperature seemed to keep rising, and it felt like the desert had come back to haunt us or something. We were sweating tons and had to take tons of shade breaks, party for the rest, but also to cool down. We reached a small flat area right next to the river, which is kind of open up into a large pool. I took a small snack break there with Wilco and Missile while Singsong kept climbing. The water was so peaceful, and I wished we could have stayed longer.
After a bit more climbing, I caught up to Singsong, who was looking for a good spot to cross the river. We ended up just hopping out on some rocks and making our way across a few little dry islands and more rocks to get all the way over. We continued on and reached a lake at the bottom of the steep part before the pass. There was snow all along it, which meant it would be plentiful on both the south and north sides. Bummer. We began our trek up, crossing snow fields and then a patch of rocks, then more snowfields. We twisted and turned, at times losing the trail because it had disappeared under snow or a creek formed by snowmelt. There were a few slightly sketchy river crossings because the lakes were overflowing and draining like crazy. Sketchy in the sense that we had to make some fairly long leaps to make it to a rock. Thankfully, though, the worst that could happen was very cold feet and ankles since it was wide enough not to be fast moving.
We hiked around a large boulder, and we could see a massive ice shoot staring down at us. We saw boot tracks in the snow and realized the trail was completely covered. We still had 1.1 miles to the top of the pass, and the rest would be completely snow-covered. Zero trail. The snow was slushy, but it held for the most part, besides a few points where we post-holed. The tracks we followed didn’t really do any switchbacks, so it was literally straight up the mountain. There were times when all of a sudden you heard rushing water underneath you, which was kind of scary because if you broke through at that point, your feet or even more of your body would fall into it. We did our best to go around snow bridges where we could see running water, but it was still fairly unnerving. At one steep section, we went past a waterfall that we hadn’t seen before we started up. It was far enough back that we weren’t really in any danger, but it did make us realize how much water was flowing underneath the snow patches in certain places.
We had to take two breaks in that 1.1 mile, and it felt like it took about 200% effort, but eventually we made it to the top and got to see the John Muir shelter on top of Muir Pass! It’s an iconic little stone hut that is meant for emergencies, and you aren’t supposed to sleep in it overnight. We enjoyed checking it out and then took a very well-deserved lunch at the top of the pass. This has been the most challenging and technical climb up a pass by far, and we were glad to have it behind us. Muir Pass is about 12,000 feet, and the rest of the high passes that we have left in the Sierra are closer to 11,000, so that will be nice.
After lunch, we had a very challenging day. The snow had gotten quite soft by the time we headed down, and every other or maybe every third step, we were post-holing. Sometimes it was just halfway up your calf, other times it was down to your thigh. The snow also completely soaked out feet, and there was nothing we could do but try to get used to the ice-cold water filling our shoes. It’s hard to describe how completely exhausting it is to post-hole, but believe me, it sucks. It’s like the trail is fighting you as you walk, and our pace was at a quarter or less of what it usually is. We had no trail to follow because, after you get over the pass, there is a fairly large plateau with a few lakes that are only slightly lower in elevation than the pass. I think because it was all so high and in a basin, the snow just wasn’t melting as fast as the other passes.
We followed the boot paths as best we could, walking on rocks when we could to keep from post-holing. At one point, we were skirting the side of the lake, and I post-holed almost down to my waist. I was in front of the rest of our group by about 100 feet and got kinda scared when I realized there was water up to my thighs. I yelled at everyone else to go around because I think I fell into the lake. The ice-melt lake. 0/10 would not recommend. To get out, I had to walk 30 feet up a ridge and continue post-holing, legs sinking through the snow and into freezing water. At one point, my foot actually got stuck in collapsed snow, and I had to dig it out. I literally crawled on hands and knees to distribute my weight and eventually reached some stiffer snow I could walk on. I paused on the next rock because the experience was fairly terrifying.
Once I had recovered and warmed up a bit, we continued on. We decided as a group to stay closer together and to find rocks to go on wherever we could because none of us was having fun at this point. I felt like I was hitting a wall, and I think it was because the hiking through this was absolutely exhausting. We stopped caring about cold feet and began walking through the creeks and snow melt moving across the ground. We continued walking through the snow for a long time. I felt more discouraged than I ever had on trial.
Finally, we began to descend and found the trail again. We still had a few patches of snow here and there, but it wasn’t constant, and we felt very grateful. We walked along a ridge above a lake and enjoyed gazing at the clear blue water. We hiked further down, crossed the lake’s outflow as the water continued downhill to feed another lake. After crossing the creek, we got on another ledge on the opposite side of the valley and walked along the lower lake, marveling at how beautiful it was. We got to the end of the oblong-shaped lake and decided to eat dinner there. It was about 5:30 when we arrived, and we wanted to eat so we could see if we wanted to push another 3-point-something miles to the ranger station, where Rune, Bouge, and Biscuit told us they were aiming to go this morning.
Dinner was very helpful in making me feel better, but when I got up to put a few things away, my legs felt like jello. I was pretty tired after today, and, combined with the long day yesterday, I didn’t feel like pushing on. Singsong and Missile felt the same way, but Wilco felt better after eating, and he loves to hike in the evening. We knew we all planned to get to VVR on Saturday, so we told Wilco to say hello to the others for us, and we will probably see them tomorrow if we catch up, or Saturday if not.
Camping at this lake felt perfect, and there was no one but the three of us, plus one other hiker who came in around 9:00. Tomorrow, we have the rest of the downhill, some big river crossings, and we will try to set up for striking distance of VVR the following day.
