Waking up to a cold morning I find the winged demons already up waiting for some morning breakfast. Disgusted by their assaults and considering the easy hike ahead of me to the Muir Trail Ranch I decide to skip breakfast and hit the trail.
About a half mile down the trail yet again a foul stink hits my nose and a find a
dead horse laying just off the trail that a bear had been eating on. "What the hell is with this canyon!?" I thought and moved on before the intoxicating stench of this thing makes me gag anymore.
Picking some Currants as my morning breakfast I move on into what can only be called a horrible trail. Hot, exposed, dry and rocky! I mean the type of rocky where I become pissed off and wish I had a Mccloud to rake the damn things off the trail! This was not a consequence of terrain no! This was someones bright idea before my time to control erosion. All you JMT hikers know the spots. Dropping off or climbing Silver Pass near the VVR junction, the area where you leave or enter Kings Canyon to the north, yes that sort of trail! Thankfully it was not that many miles of it and I once again found myself talking to hikers on the trail for over 30 minutes as they got high and offered me some. I don't smoke or drink myself and I cannot count how many times I was offered weed or alcohol on the trail! I always would give the standard response of "I am sure that is gold to most hikers but not for me"
As I rejoined the JMT and began toward the ranch my GPS had a notation for the
Muir Trail Cabin and I had no idea what it was and had not seen it last year on the trail so I went out to it. The door had been closed and was not easy to open but over all it's in good shape and it's quite interesting some of the markings on the wall from hikers doing the trail in 1930!
The Ranch was it's typical self with very
tired hikers around.
Sharing the
Blayney Hotsprings with a hand full of hikers it was becoming more comical and a bit strange sharing my hike with people. [Me: How long have you been out for? Woman: 4 days, you? Me: 40 days... Woman: 0_0 40 days!!!!?]
You begin to become like a celebrity and an inspiration to people which is an odd sort of feeling, then of course others call you crazy and truly mean it but as a Russian man I talked to on top of Glen Pass said "I no longer talk to those sorts of people, their hearts are not open".
Resuming South on the JMT was mostly uneventful until I was just below the switch backs leading up into Evolution Valley when a cut root hanging into the trail hooked my ankle and began to trip me, as I stumbled to regain my balance it was still caught on me and took me firmly to the ground BAM! Nice... cut knee, ripped shirt, trail crew bastards I thought lol as that is exactly what you don't want to leave when doing trail work!
Evolution Valley was it's typical beautiful self but
McClure Meadow was just packed with people! almost no place to camp at all!
Waking up at McClure Meadow I could see the clouds were already forming very heavy which is never a good thing. I began to wonder if I was going to have a repeat of last year being stuck in a lightning storm climbing Muir Pass but it never did anything, high winds and solid clouds all day but not a single rumble of thunder or a drop of rain.
What can you say about Evolution Basin other than beautiful?
Evolution Lake, Sapphire Lake both beautiful!
I'll have to get back to more later as I need to go.
