Me no love Passes so much, no more. Can you see the trail? No, me neither. But I jump ahead of myself...
I had a brilliant camp last night, spread out over a huge boulder flat with a nice sandy patch for my tent, water just far enough away the bugs couldn't find me and a chance to hit the switchbacks first thing this morning before the sun crested the ridge. 2 miles up before 8am, who needs coffee? Anyway, the beauty of Evolution Valley would get the heart rate going all on its own:
Steadily the trail wound upwards past lakes and streams; also as steadily the flora grew smaller, then infrequent, then non-existent. Welcome to the moon-country look of high elevations. Rock, boulders, stone, pebbles. All thrown into the path of the trail so one is constantly stumbling or clambering over something. At least there are some gorgeous crystal clear tarns for visual relief.
Muir Hut is atop the Pass, at 10,981'. It was built by the Sierra Club as a shelter for wayward hikers, and served as a beacon of respite (and lunch) for weary hikers before one has to disappear down over the opposite side.
If going up Muir Pass was hard, coming down was steep and treacherous. It appears several rockslides have run across the path so a sharp lookout is needed to spot the cairns marking the continuation of the trail. At one point I was staring off into the abyss when 2 friendly PCT-ers called to me and pointed the way, 175° from the direction I was looking!
The sun radiated intensely off all that granite so I dunked my hat frequently before finding a delightful bend in a tiny creek and had another cooling bird bath and a rest on a warm rock, before finishing the rest of the day.
After the Pass it was 6 miles and a 2500' drop to my little campsite in the trees near Big Pete Meadow. I almost felt as if the mountain had got me but I won in the end!
Today's miles: 14.5
No comments:
Post a Comment