Who publishes the sheet-music of the winds or the music of water written in river-lines?
23 July 2010
Today's hike started out with a long and steep switchback uphill through pines to Evolution Lake. It was a slow and painful climb. But once at this lake the sheer alpine beauty opened around me: aqualine blue lakes surrounded by snow-capped peaks in all directions. There was plenty of snow and rushing water all around. There was hardly another soul for the first two hours while the sun slowly moved up over the peaks to light up the ground. Hiking in the shadows was cold but refreshing and I wanted to take advantage of the early solitude.
I was now at a high-elevation lake, the last big one before ascenting Muir Pass. I had heard so much about Muir Pass and this year's snow pack, that Darlene had gotten me nervous about this area two weeks ago. We heard horror stories about there being "four miles of snow pack" or to be "extremely careful not to fall through the melting snow." Now I was approaching the pack and regardless of the snowpack, I was not turning back. I was going to climb the pass and get down the other side.
Water here was fast but clear. The first people I met was an English endurance couple who had started at the same time as I did this morning, but were lower in McClure Canyon. They hopped across the rushing creek with ease. Both were slender folk dressed in running gear. I lost sight of them a mile up the road.
Once the sun came up over Evolution Lake, people came out as well. A mother-daughter PCT team passed me the other way. They had been on the trail since April, but had to take several weeks off at a time because the 13-year-old daughter was still finishing her school work. A peruvian father and his adult daughter were behind me. Two other young men were going southbound. There was a lot of traffic near Muir Pass.
I also got to meet Ranger Dave Gordon. A tall, slender older man wearing his ranger hat and backpack, this was his turf, and apparently this is also his favorite park of Kings Canyon. He was out checking wilderness permits and asking how we were storing our food. He's been patroling the area for 18 years. I told him my story about losing Al and Then Darlene. I wanted to know if I could get my permit's exit changed from Kearsage in Onion Valley to Whiteney Portal. With a troke of his pen, he did just that. He signed and dated my permit. It was that easy! Now I could continue with ease with Tom and the boys all the way to the southern terminus. Or I could continue on alone and meet other people along the way. A big headache was lifted from my shoulders as I considered getting off the trail, hitching back to the permit office, and returning at Kearsage to finish the southern end of the JMT.
Getting over Muir Pass, though, was more difficult than I thought. The lower trail was hard to follow as it meandered around large boulders that obscured the view. I did a lot of rock hopping off the trail before I saw other people below me along the lakes. I was so worried about getting lost here, but even that fear was unfounded.
I met an older Pakistani hiker off the trail. A friendly chap, he was more of a philosopher. I told him I was afraid of losing the trail. "Don't worry, just use common sense!" he said. He was right. I was going to meet up with him again at the Muir Hut. His name was Abid.
It wasn't so much that the snow was long and hard, it's that there was nothing else along the way to keep me occupied. Snow was all around me and it slowed everyone down. The snow didn't slow several birds, ladybugs or spiders though.
I made it to Muir Hut right at noon. Several other hikers were already there enjoying their lunch. Two couples were getting ready to leave and several more were about to arrive. Two marmots, just as mentione in the Elizabeth Wenk book, stood guard at this hut that was built by the Sierra Club in 1932 to provide emergency shelter for hikers caught here in a storm.
Abid came up an hour later but didn't stay long. He looked around and quickly descended.
"Aren't you going to stay for a while?" I asked him.
"What for?" and with that he was gone, descending the other side.
His answer made sense. Why bother hanging out at the cabin? There was only so much to see, although I found the long swath of white snow in either direction rather hypnotizing. But Abid had another goal, as I learned later, and that was to hike for as long as he could every day, taking breaks only to smoke or drink tea. He was the only smoker I met on the entire trail.
Muir Pass on the south side proved to be a dangerous but beautiful area. Icy snow was still piled up high here, and sections of snow were melting and precariously hanging over rushing water. It wouldn't take long for someone to fall through this snow pack, perhaps in two weeks. The canyon coming off Muir Pass was a narrow canyon, and several lakes formed as the elevation descended. The snow and rocks slowed me down. I caught up with Abid a few times and chatted with him, yet when he took another tea break I lose him for the evening.
Despite the dangers around the melting ice, I found this canyon south of Muir Pass quite beautiful. Wanda Lake, the first large lake south of the pass, still had ice sheets on its surface. It was the last lake in the High Sierras along the JMT to thaw. Wanda was one of Muir's daughters. This area is an area I would have liked to have seen without the snow and ice. There was much life here, including a hardy species of frog that hopped across the still-snow trail. I didn't expect to see amphibians this high up in elevation, but the frogs surely weren't expecting a late and cold spring this year. They were reproducing on schedule as they had been for millenium.
"The frogs have to adapt, just like we do" said Abid. I stopped to photograph the frogs while he thought I was being silly stopping to watch the critters hop around. No where else along the trail had I seen frogs.
I lost Abid here once I got ahead of him while he took another smoke/tea break. The lower in elevation I got, the more lush my surroundings became. I liked this stretch, in fact, the entire section today was beautiful. My only complaint was that both of my feet were badly rashed from the duct tape I had put on both feet at Muir Ranch to prevent blisters. The wet boots today irritated the feet which rubbed against the tape.
The descent from Muir Pass continued on for many miles and I never made it down to the level ground. Tom and the boys caught up with me at 4:30pm and an hour later we were camped along the creek with a huge boulder that resembled a dinosaur's head. The boys had gotten the little level ground there was. To preserve their privacy, I pitched my tent on a small slant closer to the trail. I washed my hair, washed my blue blouse, had my Mountain House meal, and called it a night at 8pm when the boys were still out doing their father-son talks.
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