John Muir Trail, 2013

John Muir Trail - 2013
From June 25, 2013 through July 19, 2013

Starting: Glacier Point, Yosemite
Ending:   Whitney Portal, Inyo National Forest

Sherri and Gary Duran traveled 220 miles in 24 days from Yosemite National Park, through the Inyo and Sierra National Forests, finally arriving at Sequoia and Kings Canyon Nation Parks. This is Sherri's second time making this trek; my first time as a thru-hiker.

As I put in my log, something which strikes me is how we matured as hikers during this time. What was hard at the start, became easy later on; the impossible was all in a days walk. How true this is. When start walking, any climb is hard; as we continue to walk even Whitney is a walk in the park--maybe without sufficient oxygen though.

Along the way, we would see amazingly deep valleys, the highest peaks in the continental United States, blue lakes and raging streams. We would have bright sunny days, passes covered by clouds, rained and hailed upon, hear thunder and seen lightening, experienced heat. But in all of this, we had the enjoyable experience of meeting people from all over the state, the country and the world.

These people included many whom I think will be folks whom we keep in touch with. They include, and hopefully I do not missed anyone:

• Instigator, No-Dae and Rehab, PCTer's on the way to Yosemite Valley for some R&R
• Night Crawler, a PCTer, and her father who was resupplying her
• Cliff, the first of the back-country rangers
• Nicole, from Los Angeles who was on the verge of being a logistics consultant. She made it to Whitney a few days before us. We hiked with her for about a week.
• Fritz, and eventually his wife Ethel. We hiked with Fritz for several days and then they housed us at Edison.
• The honeymoon couple, who later on stopped in at an REI store and met our daughter
• Jim, a programmer at UCSC
• Julie and her young son from Chicago, hiking the JMT, whom we may not have met the next friends
• Rachel and Ray, who knew our daughter from college. We hiked with them for a week. What a pleasure.
• Beth a second year teacher from Oakland
• Larry and Paul from Green Bay, whom we hiked with for a week and saw coming down Whitney
• John B from Fresno. He brought the movie Mile...Mile and half to Fresno. He is also part of our hiking group.
• George, Chris and Steve from Minneapolis. We hiked with them for several days

As you can see, the JMT is not just a bunch of solo hikers, but a moving community. Such an enjoyable experience.

Our journal is given by each day. Most mileages came from our GPS. But some, where the GPS was not accurate, we took from Elizabeth Wenk's book(see below).  If there is a picture you would like to see, click on it. Most of them will grow to fill the screen.

Many people have gone before us on this trek. Their experience is something which we value. A book, which we carried on our iPad, was Elizabeth Wenk's John Muir Trail, The essential guide to hiking America's most famous trail. It is an essential guide and one which we recommend reading and paying attention to.

Also after we hiked the JMT, we saw a movie called Mile...Mile and a Half in Clovis. It was a special showing. The movie documents a group of photographers doing the JMT in 2011. While it will not win any Oscars, for those who have experienced the JMT, it was fun reliving the trail. You can see the trailer for it on Vimeo. There may buy a copy of the entire film on YouTube for $4.

We recently saw another video, which aired on PBS in 2012. It is called High Sierra - A Journey on the John Muir Trail. It is a 58 minute documentary about five high school students who hike with a photographer/videographer on the John Muir Trail, north to south. Yosemite ranger Shelton Johnson also is a major part of the video. They took 18 days to complete the trail, faster than Sherri and Gary did it in. The video was produced by Cirque Productions by Peter Bell. In Gary's opinion, the photography was better than Mile, Mile and Half. But the music was better in the former and seemed a bit more cohesive as a story. They also have a web site with the trailer.

One of the benefits of this kind of a walk is for those who are overweight like me is the ability to lose weight. On this trip, I was able to lose 14 pounds.

Another benefit, is that many days we learned lessons. The lessons, some days  were specific to our situation. But most of them will carry over into real life. You can find the lessons at the end of each day.

Abbreviations:

• JMT - John Muir Trail
• PCT - Pacific Crest Trail
• VVR - Vermillion Valley Resort at Edison Lake
• JMR - John Muir Ranch
• NPS - National Park Service
• NFS - National Forest Service
• DDG - Drop Dead Gorgeous, usually when we are looking at a view
• JDV - Jaw Dropping View

 

Date	Campsite	Miles Walked	Elevation Gained	Max Elevation
June 25, 2013	Sunrise Creek	10.57	2,969	7,865	First day, starting from Glacier Point, a bit cloudy, but truly glorious.
June 26, 2013	Long Meadow	7.33	2,250	9,757	Steep uphill, but starting to get into the higher elevations.
June 27, 2013	Cathedral Area and Tuolume Meadows	9.25	1,168	10,082	Nice uphill to Cathedral Pass, then all down to Tuolumne
June 28, 2013	Pond at 10,185'	10.6	1,506	10,185	Hike up Lyell Canyon, with some side entertainment at our pond.
June 29, 2013	Island Pass	6.7	1,440	11,060	We meet Nicole and go over Donohue Pass and get to watch a really nice sunset.
June 30, 2013	Trinity Lakes	11.5	1,772	10,180	We go pretty good today; meet a newly married couple; fight off mosquitoes.
July 1, 2013	Deer Creek	10.9	1,673	9,514	Go through Devil's PostPile and meet Fritz
July 2, 2013	Virgina Lake	9.9	2,089	10,499	Gary becomes inventive; it rains today; and find a really beautiful place.
July 3, 2013	Pocket Meadow	10.51	1,869	10,900	Hiking down from Lake Virginia into Tully Hole. Then our rainy and thundery climb up Silver Pass, followed by a long descent towards Edison lake.
July 4, 2013	Edison Lake	3.71	121	8,683	A short hike, plenty to eat and meeting up with Trail friends. Also, we suffer through a day of rest
July 5, 2013	Bear Creek	10.0	2,580	9,888	First day carrying a really heavy pack. But made up for it by walking along Bear Creek and making friends with Ray and Rachel.
July 6, 2013	San Joaquin River	11.3	1,120	10,890	Climbed up Seldon Pass, but first enjoyed Marie lake. Our campsite was not as enjoyable as usual.
July 7, 2013	Colby Meadow	11.6	2,540	9,850	We meet with our trail friends-Nicole, and camp with  Rachel and Ray in Evolution Valley. What a sight!
July 8, 2013	Sapphire Lake	5.1	1,186	10,966	Short day's hike, but big day for scenery. Great views of Evolution Valley.
July 9, 2013	Le Conte Ranger Station	11.1	1,058	11,960	A pretty long hike up Muir Pass and Hut. We meet Larry and Paul here.
July 10, 2013	Lower Palisades Lake	10.3	2,546	10,615	What a killer of a day. You go up a valley and what meets you at the end? The Golden Staircase.
July 11, 2013	Bench Lake Ranger  Station	10.3	1,825	12,100	Great views throughout the day and a long walk down Mather Pass
July 12, 2013	Woods Creek Crossing	10.3	1,350	12,130	A bit of a trudge up Pinchot and a longer one down to Woods Creek.
July 13, 2013	Upper Rae Lakes	6.8	2,053	10,600	Relaxing day, even with a 2,000' climb. This may be the best of the JMT.
July 14, 2013	Bubbs Creek	9.3	2,420	11,960	We leave Rae Lakes behind and go over Glen Pass down into Bubbs Creek area.
July 15, 2013	Tyndall Frog Ponds	9.8	2,706	13,100	It is a long trek up to Forester and a long trek down. But the views relieve the trudge.
July 16, 2013	Guitar Lake	10.8	1,575	11,559	We are looking forward to tomorrow and going out over Whitney. So today is putting us into position to do just that.
July 17, 2013	Trail Camp	9.2	3,336	14,506	We made it to the top-that is to Mt Whitney and completed the JMT. But a surprise awaited us there.
July 18, 2013	Whitney Portal	6.3	147	11,810	Final hike of the JMT. Good to see Steven again.
July 19, 2013	Lone Pine Lake	6.37	2,208	10,110	Day Hike back up to Lone Pine Lake to meet up with Andrea. But needed a second try

Our total walking was 223.2 miles, Wenk's books legs the hike as 218.6 from Yosemite Valley to Whitney Portal. Total ascent was 43,299'-Wenk says about 46,000'. The differences can be explained somewhat with just discrepancies in our instrumentation and our "cheats". Our "average day was 9.3 miles with an ascent of 1,800'. Of course behind that average our days ranged from 3.7 to 11.6 miles and 121' to 3,336'. But it is not the miles or the climb but the enjoyment. That still remains with us.

References:
For those of you who might be interested in hiking the JMT, here are some references which you can consult:

• PCT Association's JMT Web Pages
•  Wikipedia - not much detail, just general info
• Yosemite's JMT Information
• Dean Delgado's Hike JMT site
• The Complete Guide to the John Muir Trail
• Documentary at UNCTV - High Sierra - A Journey on the John Muir Trail
• Backpacker's Magazine - Best Hike in America
• Yahoo Group
• Facebook Group

Cheating:
A couple of places where we "cheated" a bit, or in some places, enhanced the experienced of walking the JMT:

• Glacier Point. We started at Glacier Point in Yosemite. The official starting place is Happy Isles on the Yosemite Valley floor. In May there was a rock slide above Vernal Falls, blocking part of the JMT. NPS cleared up the trail, but Sherri and Gary started thinking that they had done the hike out of Happy Isles several times. Why not try starting someplace else which we had not done before?
• A Note: After watching Mile...Mile and a Half, it looks like they started at the same place as we did. Maybe we did not cheat too badly here.
• Lee Vining. Steven, our son, picked us up at Tuolumne Meadows. Rather than camping overnight there, we slept in a hotel room and had dinner at the Woe Nellie Dei. Delicious.
• Tuolumne Meadows. Steven picked us up on June 27th at the Tuolumne Meadows Wilderness Office. There is a mile of the JMT which runs beside the road down to the lodge. It is gravel and not very interesting. We had Steven drop us off, close to the lodge, losing that mile stretch.

• Devil's Postpile. There is a section, maybe about 3-4 miles of trail which runs along the western edge of the Devil's Postpile before entering into Red's Meadow. This section bears the brunt of the sun, whether morning or afternoon. Plus the trail runs through a burnt out section of forest on pumice rock. Not very pleasant walking. Also you only get to see the Postpile from a distance. So we decided to cut through the Postpile, in the shade and enjoy the sight of the Postpile. Much better, 
• Mile...Mile and half also shows scenes from this section of the trail we went on.
• Bear Ridge. We stayed at Edison Lake's Vermillion Valley Resort on July 4th. In coming across, we saw that we had to walk between  three-quarters to a mile of lake bed to reach the ferry. Rather than do that, we had our new friend Fritz drop us off at the Bear Ridge trailhead. This trail puts us at a point about 3 to 4 miles up the JMT at 9,888' elevation. We travel about 5 miles up the trail. So the distance is the same or better, so is the climb. It is just a little bit more gradual.

July 19, 2013 - Lone Pine Lake

Title: July 19, 2013 - Lone Pine Lake

Trail head: Whitney Portal

Hike Info:

Trail: Trail up to Lone Pine Lake

Destination:Lone Pine Lake

Distance:  6.37 miles
Start Time: 9:38
End Time: 3:35

Travel Time: 5:57 (1.07 mph)

Moving Time: 3:21 (1.90 mph)

Elevation Rise: 2,208'

Maximum Elevation: 10,110'

Description:

After coming down from Trail Camp yesterday, we debated about what we want to do while waiting for Andrea. I am for going going back and meeting Andrea since she is hiking down today. It is a real joy to hear what she did to surprise us. So it is back up the trail, but with a twist. We had not taken a look at Lone Pine Lake.So a side trip will be taken there as well.

Towards Lone Pine Lake

So back up the trail we go. Somehow the trail is not as bad going up as I thought it would be. Sort of thought it would be a huff and puff time. While not exactly sprinting up, a good pace was kept, even passing people. When a backpacker  is met coming down, I chat with them, asking where did they come from? Where did they sleep last night? Have they seen a women about 30, probably hiking alone? The answer to all was no. On the other hand there was several people impressed that somebody would be going back up this trail willingly. But for our daughter, gladly.

Going up, I even see Larry and Paul. Glad that they are making it and enjoying it.They were only a day behind Sherri and I. About eleven get up to the junction with Lone Pine Lake. I leave my hat and a note for Andrea saying gone off to the Lake will return back in half an hour or so.

The trail is pretty eroded down to the lake, a bit steep. Not sure what to make of the lake, seems a bit desolate. Maybe because most other lakes you see either it rock rimmed or grasses and bush around it. But Lone Pine has soil, but not a lot of low vegetation.

Yesterday's View of Lone Pine Lake

After enjoying the lake for a few minutes, I go back up to a rock beside the trail down from Whitney. After lunch, I resume my questioning of innocent passersby's. Still not word-one person thought he saw someone like her, but it really did not match her. I read and rest and enjoy the sunshine. But no Andrea. Around 2, it is decided to turn back. The trip down is pretty quick and uneventful.

Gary At Lone Pine Lake

We decide to stay another night and check into the Dow Villa Motel. The Days Inn is full. While having dinner at Carl's Jr, we get a call from Andrea. She is coming down and thinks she will be there are 8. So around 7:30 we make it back up to Whitney Portal. I take off up the trail—it is becoming an old friend by now. I go up about a mile and finally meet Andrea, hobbling down the trail. She had sprained her ankle a day before. So I take her pack and we go back down. Steven does spring off a rock-he has hiked up a good ways. A joyful reunion occurs. She takes a bath and we go out for pizza.

July 18, 2013 - Whitney Portal

Title: July 18, 2013 - Whitney Portal

Hike Info:

Trail: John Muir Trail

Starting location:  Trail Camp

Destination:  Whitney Portal

Distance:  6.3 miles

Start Time:  9:47

End Time:  2:44

Travel Time: 5:49 ( mph)

Moving Time: 3:59 ( mph). 

Elevation Rise: 147'

Maximum Elevation:   11,810

Description:

Guard Marmot watching us

Sun was already risen when I got up at 6:30. We had said that we could sleep in today. Tried to get up without distributing Sherri. George, Chris, and Steve were about to leave when I greeted them. It's their earliest start. They must be ready to end their journey, as are we. 

Wooten's Throne Loaming Over Us

On our part, Sherri does not get up until well after 7, when the sun's rays are penetrating my shirt. What a difference it is to be up at 12,000'. We are not in a hurry. We dilly-dally around and do not get moving until 10. A trail crew is working on the section of the trail around us. But they are pretty quiet and work efficiently.

Down we go through this crack

The way out of Trail Camp, and for the next 2+ miles is pretty steep and rocky. So we do not make much time, only about a mile an hour. But as a consolation, we got to stop and talk with a guy who offered Sherri an apple. Also a little while later, we came upon a lone woman hiking. We talked for a few minutes, then she asked a few questions about conditions at Trail Camp. She was out of uniform and is the District Ranger for Inyo. Her name is Margaret. An enjoyable woman

Mirror Lake was our next stopping place. It was a pleasant place to rest for awhile.  Sherri even took off her boots and relaxed her toes in the lake. We continued past Outpost Camp-glad we did not stop there. The only redeeming thing about this was a nice waterfall. But the grounds were mostly gravel, with a few trees.

Cascade out of Lone Pine Lake

After this, the trail became much more like a trail and we really took off, barely pausing for a break. We made it down the steep descent at a good pace. Even though some people passed us, we did good. We could see the road, then a half an hour later, we saw cars in the parking lot at Whitney Portal (36.58648, -118.23888). Then we finally came into view of the trail's end, and there was Steven. A joyful hug was given. A wonderful sight to see. Our journey was completed.

Final Creek Crossing

Entering Whintey Portal

I cannot say there was euphoria, or even exhaustion, or a brilliant revelation. We were done with the trail for now. We had enjoyed the time and now it was time to get on with our next things-enjoying our family, enjoying our life, which is what the last 24 days have been about. Of course, there were a couple  of priorities: finding the bathroom, finding this moose burger we have been dreaming about since Yosemite, and finding a shower. The bathroom came soon and provided much relief. The moose burger was a bit of disappointment-the fries were good. The shower came in the form of a hotel room at the Comfort Inn in Lone Pine.

We spent time just relaxing and writing and reading. Then went out for dinner at the Totem Cafe-pricey, but good. Then back to the hotel room and to sleep after a little while.

Today's JMT Lesson:  It is OK to stop when we need to, know our limitations, and enjoy what we have.

The End

Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snacks
Oatmeal and add-ins, such as dried peaches, strawberries, nuts, granola. Tang.	Peanut Butter and Nutella on crackers	Totem Cafe	Clif Bar, Jelly Bellies, CytoMax, Propel, GORP, Bank Balls

July 17, 2013 - Trail Camp

Title: July 17, 2013 - Trail Camp

Hike Info:

Trail: John Muir Trail

Starting location:  Guitar lake
Destination:  Whitney Portal
Actual Destination:  Trail Camp
Distance:   9.2¹
Start Time:  6:03am
End Time:  6:50pm
Travel Time:  12:47 (0.72 mph)
Moving Time: 6:52 (1.34  mph)  ¹
Elevation Rise: 3,336'  ¹
Maximum Elevation:  14,506'

Description:

Psalm 19:1-4 (NIV), from today's quiet time:

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
² Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
³ They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
⁴ Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

These words seem so appropriate, so right after all which we have seen and done. May my spirit offer the same words and praise.

The Night Sky silouetted by the top of the Sierras

I woke up at 2:30 to seeing the stars dance in the heavens. Then I turned over and saw lights on the move up past us, and on up to the mountains which we will climb today. My mind must have been excited as I could not return back to sleep for more than just a few minutes. 

Morning has broken

Sherri woke up around 3:30. I asked her if she was ready to start walking? No. But neither could she go back to sleep. So we laid there, watching the stars and lights, and thinking about how cold it was outside of our sleeping bags. Finally around 4:30, we got up and got packed. Just a wonderful sunrise, on the faraway peaks-rosy, orange and light. But we will not feel the warmth for several hours as Whitney and its range will be blocking the sun.

Guitar Lake

E'gads! Our propane canister has run out of fuel. Or is it just too cold? Whichever way, I am now glad we asked for Talia's canister back at Le Conte. Her canister fired right up and we had hot oatmeal on this cold morning.

Left our campsite at 6 and started up the long trail to Trail Crest. We will be in shadows all the way to Trail Crest.  Like the Tolkien song says, The Road Goes Ever Onward. But today is our last day on the Trail. Tonight Steven will pick us up, assuming we can make it down to Whitney Portal. Showers and burgers fill my mind as we walk along.

The trail is going up is strong and the oxygen is light.  This has us stopping for breath in the cold air, but the coolness does have the positive effect of having move along. Not really sweating. Before we know it, we have climbed up 500', then a thousand. I start playing a game of saying which pass we have just topped-Glen Pass, then Pinchot, Mather, Muir, and finally, of course, Forester.

Hitchcock Lake

We rise above Hitchcock Lakes, admiring the reflections of the rocks rising from the lakes. The sun is  shining on these slopes, creating a bright spots on our climb. We stop a couple of times to take off our packs. At 9, three things happens: we come out into the light, John B from Fresno appears, and we arrive at Trail Crest. All three are welcome, even though in a little while, the first will be less so. 

Trail up the side of the mountain

At Trail Crest, which is really about 200' below the actual pass, but the JMT does not go through the pass on its way up to Whitney. After unloading some of Sherri's pack and putting the contents into mine, we take off towards Whitney, with Sherri's pack, stocked with food and water. It took us three hours go from Guitar to Trail Crest. It will take close to three hours from Trail Crest to Whitney. 

Almost to the top

The climb up is along a trail which is always rocky, sometimes a bit narrow, and is perched on a steep incline for much of the way. Today was a light traffic day. When Sherri was up here before, the line could have been at Disneyland. You add in that the Badwater to Whitney Portal run ended today, you get a fair amount of trail runners as well. One sort of skidded in front of us, after passing us. He flopped around, trying to right himself, before realizing how close to the edge he was. But for us, we took our time and was cautious.  As we approached the top, the altitude was taking its toll on us. We stopped more and more often to catch our breath. We felt relieved as we turned the corner, and started up the third of a mile incline up to the peak. Many others were stopping and breathing along the way.

Smithsonian Hut

At the top (36.57886, -118.29185), we found the Whitney hut, actually called the Smithsonian Institute Hut. It was constructed to observe a solar eclipse. In the trail registry, we saw that the Ray and Rachel had made it to the top on Monday, July 15th. It was good to see that. But we did not see an entry for Nicole.

The Top

Celebration

Also on top, we see John from Fresno, along with George, Chris and Steve from Minnesota. Sort of like a family reunion. We talk for awhile. After much trying, got to send a text with our picture. Also Spot worked as well. 

That is when things got interesting. Called up Steven. He said that Andrea was coming in from the High Sierra Trail to surprise us. She would be there Thursday night, and climb over Whitney Friday. At least that is what her schedule is. That is a big surprise. What a wonderful daughter to think of us, and want to make our lives a joy. 

This does lead to one complication-what do we do now? Go back to Guitar Lake? Go down to Lone Pine tonight? Stop someplace else? We decide to stop on the trail down. We were not up to doing the climb out of Guitar again.

We called other family members, telling them we made it to the top. Also, that we have now officially completed the JMT, It is fun doing that--also fun just saying that. Got through to all, except Andrea, of course. David does say that not all of our Spot messages got through. The Minnesota group decides to leave the party after awhile. We talk with John for awhile longer, then he heads off as well.

Gary, King of the World

 

We stay on top for a total of an hour and a half, then start coming back down. It is faster-not as much need to catch our breath. But you do feel weaker, so we do not move very fast. Also with the rocky surface we have a tendency to be careful.

Whitney from the east

We rest at Trail Crest before we start our way down in the Lone Pine direction. We will try to make Outpost Camp tonight. Did I say down? The first little bit is another 200' climb, before we start our descent. Then down we go. Down, and down, and still more down. They have re-engineered this from seven years ago. I do not know, but Sherri  remembers a different trail. But the steepness, once again causes us to be cautious, so we go slow, about a mile an hour. Seems strange that we are going at the same speed down something as up it.

Trail Camp is by the pond

Around 6:30 we get into Trail Camp.  (36.56314, -118.27943) Sherri remembers this place as being human turd infested. But it looks like the Forest Service has cleaned it up quite a bit. As tired as we are, we decide not to do another two miles down to Outpost Camp. We find a suitable place. Then on the way to get water, a better place. Dinner is cooked. We see George, Chris and Steve a little ways from us and exchange greetings. Then it is off to bed. We look at pictures and fall asleep, knowing we do not need to get up early  tomorrow.

You may have noticed, that the description from the top does not contain these jaw dropping thoughts and observations. I guess by the time we got there, it just does not match up to the rest of the journey. It is the end, and that makes it special. it is wonderful to see the mountains upon mountains, looking down on everything around us. the cold, blue lakes, the barren landscape. but there is not a specialness to the place for me, like there is around some of the other high places we have been too. Even a lowly pass like Island, I have more desire to be at. I am not saying that I wish I was not here, but that the enjoyment is in the completion of the journey, rather than in the place. Do we think we will go up there again? Probably not.

Today's JMT Lesson: It does not matter how fast you go, as long as you get there.

Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snacks
Oatmeal and add-ins, such as dried peaches, strawberries, nuts, granola. Tang.	Peanut Butter and Nutella on crackers	Beef Vegetable Wrap Milano Mint Chocolate Cookies	Clif Bar, Jelly Bellies, CytoMax, Propel, GORP, Bank Balls

 ¹The supplied figures above come from either the book John Muir Trail: The essential guide to hiking America's most famous trail by Elizabeth Wenk or from topo maps. There was only partial tracks for today in my GPS. Below is the readings from today's status on the GPS. I view it as only somewhat accurate.

Distance:  9.41 miles

Elevation Rise:  1,805'

Maximum Elevation: 14,505'

On the trail up

The Windows and Mt Muir from Whitney

Trail down to Trail Camp

Marmot Heaven

July 16, 2013 - Guitar Lake

Title: July 16, 2013 - Guitar Lake

Hike Info:

Trail:  John Muir Trail

Starting location:  Tyndale Frog Ponds

Destination:  Guitar Lake

Distance:   10.8 miles ¹

Start Time:   7:40

End Time:   4:45

Travel Time: 9:05 (1.19 mph)

Moving Time: 5:09 (2.10 mph)

Elevation Rise:   1,575' ¹

Maximum Elevation:  11,559'

Description:

Usual morning routine. Got on the trail around 7:40. But we have re-arranged our packs a bit. I am carrying  the bear canister Sherri was carrying with the idea that it might make going up to Whitney a bit faster and easier. With us down to less than a week's food, this should not be too bad. I can feel the weight, but not as bad as I expected.

Bighorn Plateau

We start our first climb of the day, up to 11,400'. This is the pond we debated about going to last night on Bighorn Plateau. The pond itself is almost perfectly circular, and there looks like the water would be easy to filter. The view is fabulous from there. The place gives a clear view of the upper Kern drainage. And there in lies the problem. The campsite would have been very exposed, to wind, sun or any kind of weather. While it was a beautiful morning, we are still glad we stayed close to the frog ponds.

Whitney with Hut

Towards the Wallace Drainage

Once over the plateau, we start to descend into Wright and Wallace Creeks, where there are good campsites. We even get a good view Whitney, with the hut on top. We take a break at the three mile mark, at Wright's Creek. Nice place to stop and camp. The hiking group from Orange County catches up to us here and passes us. 

After crossing Wallace, we start a major climb up to the ridge which will bring us down into Crabtree Meadows. This is navigated pretty well, with some rests along the way. Chris and Steve catch up to us, and pass us in this section. We go into Sandy Meadow, where the map shows a creek. But every ravine is dried up. So we stop for lunch and just enjoy a view of the meadow.

Timberline Lake

Then it is on to Crabtree. By now the sun is high overhead, without the benefit of a filtering cloud. We are a bit hot when we pull into Crabtree. The trail does not run next to the creek, so we need to be content with looking down at it. We eventually have a second lunch beside the trail. Then go on for a half of a mile, when the trail pulls beside Crabtree Creek.  There is a nice little spot where we drop our packs, filter water and take a short nap. There is a "No Camping" sign, but nothing about "No Stopping". George catches up to us here.

Guitar Lake

At Timberline Lake, we take a few pictures, and meet the Crabtree Ranger, Greg P. friendly fellow. Then it is off to Guitar Lake. This will be our launch point for Whitney tomorrow. In the meantime, it is a thousand foot climb from Crabtree to Guitar and we are feeling it. With the sun beating down on us, it is even penetrating our clothes. But we make it there. Not as many people as Sherri expected, still we search a bit for a site, finally finding one on the east side of the lake. (36.57165, -118.3125)

We ordered a room with a view

Sherri is pretty tired. I think the altitude is getting to her. We are at 11,500'. She does fix dinner and we eat well, with the thought of possibly going out tomorrow. It is early to bed, watching a Dr. Who episode.

Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snacks
Oatmeal and add-ins, such as dried peaches, strawberries, nuts, granola. Tang.	Peanut Butter and Nutella on crackers	Beef and Cabbage Wrap	Clif Bar, Jelly Bellies, CytoMax, Propel, GORP, Bank Balls

 ¹The supplied figures above come from either the book John Muir Trail: The essential guide to hiking America's most famous trail by Elizabeth Wenk or from topo maps. My GPS did record the full track on this day, but it is substantially different than the books. I am inclined to believe the books on the mileage. But I think that I am under counting the elevation rise because the book does not have the top of the ridges.

Distance:  9.48 miles

Elevation Rise:  2,221'

Maximum Elevation: 11,558'

Range to the south

Gary and Whitney

Mountains to the west