July 6, 2013 - San Joaquin River

Title: July 6, 2013 - San Joaquin River

Hike Info:

Trail:  John Muir Trail, Day Twelve

Starting location: Bear Creek Jct with Gables Lakes

Destination: JMT and the San Joaquin  River

Distance:   11.3 miles ¹

Start Time: 7:30

End Time:  6:30

Travel Time:  11:00 (1.03 mph)

Moving Time: 6:05 (1.86 mph)

Elevation Rise: 1,120'  ¹

Maximum Elevation:   10,890' ¹

Description:

Gary crossing Bear Creek

Today is the day I complete the John Muir Trail! That is, as segments. I have done every thing from. Happy Isles to Mt Whitney-as segments over the last 45 years. But of course, the real objective of this trip is to do the JMT as a thru hiker. Which today also marks our halfway point, in miles, on the JMT. So this will be a real blue ribbon day, if we can survive it.

We are in between a couple of mountains, so at 5:30, when I got up, it was still grey, with no direct morning light, even on the mountains to the west of us.  Mosquitoes find me pretty quickly. The rest of the camp starts to get up.

The first thing out of the chute today is crossing Bear Creek, as part of the morning walk, I had scouted out the creek and could not find a good place to go across-even got a boot wet.  So we all wade across-came mid-calf on me. By the time we dry off and get Sherri's foot doctored, it is 8, about half an hour after leaving camp.

Now we start our uphill climb of 1,320'. So the climb itself is not bad, but the weight in the packs is the challenge. We do pretty well on the first 500', resting for awhile at the top. Nothing spectacular-just the ordinary, common beauty of pine trees, granite and mountain heather.

Marie Lake

For awhile, the trail levels off, into a gentle incline, until we start climbing up to Marie Lake. That is another 400' climb. But once we pop out onto the lake, it is well worth the effort. This is why do walk the Trail, to see the blueness of lakes like this, the image of freshness, starkness. We stop for a rest and lunch, before starting the final assault on Seldon Pass. There were even some ducks, real ducks not cairns, for our enjoyment.

Ducks on Marie

The final 300'+ climb was a slow affair. I stop often to take a picture, or so I say to myself. Marie Lake is the center of attention, but the surrounding mountains would be all-stars in any other setting. After a series of switchbacks, we come out on top, right at noon. The blueness of the sky is dazzling, while the view looking north is great.

On top of Seldon Pass

On of Sally Keyes Lakes

We meet Jim, a programmer at UCSC on top. He did a day hike up the side of the pass we did. He also is the leader of a backpacking meetup group in Santa Cruz. We talk for about 40 minutes, taking pictures. Issac from India, a seventeen year old comes up at the last part of our stay. Pictures are taken.

Then we start down the south side a little before one. It is a bit slow, steep and windy. We pass by Heart Lake, then stop at Sally Keyes Lakes for a rest and water, and some energy. Sherri was even able to take a little snooze, for about ten minutes. 

San Joaquin towards Florence Lake

When we started walking again, there was a feeling of refreshment. We needed that because for the next several hours it was a long, hot downhill, dropping 2,800' down towards the San Joaquin River. Much of it was one foot in front of the other. 

When we got to the junction we tried to find the place where we stayed last year. Had to wander around a bit to find a place close to it. We were very tired, hardly the energy to make dinner. Got every thing set up and put away. Then hit the sack. We are thinking of a scaled back day tomorrow. Yippee! I can load pictures from my camera now to the iPad, so we watch them before closing our eyes.

Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snacks
Huge pancakes at VVR.	Peanut Butter and Nutella on crackers	Szechuan Vegtable Noodle	Clif Bar, Jelly Bellies, CytoMax, Propel, GORP

 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:  12.3 miles

Elevation Rise:  875'

Maximum Elevation: 10,880'