Day 61
Miles: 19
From evolution lake to a creek, before Selden Pass

Our morning matches our evening – leisurely. Once we start back up, our mini lake vacation is over. Well, sort of. We make it from one side of Evolution Lake to the other, then stop again. J needs to go swimming, and I need to re-braid my hair. It’s hard to believe we’ve finished all the major passes of the High Sierra. It’s a little sad.

Before starting this thru-hike, the places and things I was worried about were all a big anxiety stew. One place at a time, they’ve sorted themselves into places, days. The muddle gets strung like beads into a timeline I can’t reverse.

From Evolution Lake it’s a long ways down. We drop down fast, crashing down switchbacks and past JMT hikers as we try to make up time. First we follow evolution creek, then we ford it – the first time we’ve had to get our feet wet. “You know the drill, right?” asks J. “Three points of contact. Keep your hipbelt unbuckled. If you start getting swept off your feet, face upstream.”
  “Yup. Let’s do it.” Trail runners get swapped for camp shoes and in we go. Easy-peasy. The hardest part is not flailing at the mosquitoes, which somehow know that I’m totally vulnerable and descend in hordes.

Evolution Creek

Tasty, Storybook, and Crawfish are on the other side, eating lunch. We pass them by and follow Evolution Creek the rest of the way down. It cascades over a cliff, we switchback down. The San Joaquin River takes us down some more. We’re a long way out of high country already now, in tall pines, forested slopes.

We’re pounding out the miles today, but we pause at the trail head to Piute Canyon. “This is where I did field work on college,” J tells me, pointing up canyon. “Almost ten years ago now… that’s bizarre.” A couple hiking the JMT stops to chat, and tells us to be sure to check out the hot springs up ahead.

Hot springs! Don’t need to tell me twice!

Getting to Blayney hot springs involves a stream crossing a little bit more stressful than the first. Then a trek across a warm, squishy bog, lots more mosquitoes, and some wandering about. The hot spring is a turbid and murky pool with naked people in it. There’s an attractive couple from Santa Cruz, a John Muir lookalike, and -horrors- the annoying man from Muir Pass.

We take off our clothes and join them (when in California…), and proceed to have the exact same annoying conversation with the annoying man as the day before. It’s even worse the second time round. The couple from Santa Cruz leaves – I think it’s time we did as well. I was worried that the hot springs would blow up the rest of our day. Instead, I can’t wait to get out of here.

The mosquitoes chase us the rest of the way back to the trail, and fueled by annoyance and mosquito rage (I’ve got the rage!) I take us up the mountain. The vertical grade is completely unnecessary. Who planned this thing?

Nice thing about a stiff uphill – if you hike up long enough you will run out of energy to waste on things like being annoyed. I’m exhausted, but finally calm. We set up our tarp in the dark. Selden Pass tomorrow.

Day 60
Miles: 14
From just past grouse meadow to evolution lake
Muir Pass

We’re all hurting this morning, but Teal is in bad shape. “I just don’t think I should be in this much pain after taking four ibuprofen.”
  “Probably not, Teal.”
Teal decides to bail and get to a doctor. The quickest way out is over Bishop Pass, so he’ll take that. Bluesman is leaving us today too – he’s got to get off trail for some stuff at home, and if he doesn’t put on the rocket boosters his schedule won’t work. We misplaced our rocket boosters somewhere back in Arizona, so we’ll let him race ahead without us.

“I can’t believe we’re breaking the fellowship,” mourns Bluesman.
  “I know. Good times have to end eventually, I guess.” Thinking about hiking with just J and my own self for company feels a little bit lonely, and a little bit free. Our own fate is just on us now.

In the bright, late morning light, the canyon we slept in reveals itself as a twinned citadel of bright white stone, guarding its emerald meadows. This is King’s Canyon.

We see Teal off at the side trail for Bishop’s Pass; he leaves us with a bag of skittles to remember him by. Bluesman has dusted us already. I think about our friend Bob, hiking with the three Canadians. “I think the Canadians are ready for twenty-fives,” he’d told me. “J,” I say, “I think Bluesman was our Bob.”
  “Yeah,” he laughs. “And we were his Canadians!” We’ll have to see if we’ll be able to make miles still without our coach to drag us along.

King’s Canyon is spectacular, and gets prettier the higher we go. We stop when there is a man sitting right in the middle of the trail. J wants some snacks, so we end up embroiled in a conversation with the most annoying man I’ve ever met. After telling us that we are slow, behind, and running late, he gives us a barrel of unsolicited advice on how to do the rest of our hike. I take great pleasure in blasting past him on the switchbacks (although I end up panting for a long time after).

Heading to Muir Pass is the most beautiful stretch of trail I’ve ever been on. Cascades of water tumbling over stone fields, trails lined with flowers, sharp-edged peaks. Everything has such sharp lines here, such bright colors – blue, white, green, pink – you could cooler it in with a twelve set of crayolas.

We stop at Lake Helen, the bluest thing I’ve ever seen. A group of weekenders are admiring the view, and we chat a bit. “Why are you doing this hike?” asks one. J stops, thinks, then says slowly: “I don’t know. It’s a decision I made once, and I’ve just never reevaluated!”

“Oh no,” I think. “He’s going to reevaluate, then I’ll have to hike the rest of the way all by myself!”

He doesn’t though, and we hike to the pass together. We see Muir Hut, and the familiar sight of Bluesman’s back. “Bluesman!” we scream after him, and we reunite one more time before watching him disappear of the horizon.

We hang out in the Muir Hut while we decide our next move. J would like to do a section of the High Sierra Route, an alternate to the PCT pioneered by a climber. It sounds cool, if I wasn’t exhausted. The Sierras are amazing, but they’re wringing me dry. That, and the black clouds building behind us, and friends we’re supposed to meet in Tuolumne… We decide to stay on the main PCT and take a short day at Evolution Lake instead.

There’s a rock outcrop with a secret, sandy spot hidden behind it, and we set up our tarp. J fishes, I get swarmed by mosquitoes, and watch the water turn gold and lavender. We eat fish for dinner. No passes tomorrow.

Can you find the trail in the photo?

Tadpoles!

Lake Helen

Day. 59
Miles: 21
From lake Marjorie to past grouse meadow
Mather pass

We didn’t put up our net tent last night, and the mosquitoes finally chase us out of bed. The swarms are getting thicker every day.

We drop quickly below timberline for a lovely, morning, forest walk. We fall in with Tasty and Storybook at a stream crossing, all of us balancing on wet stones and logs to keep our feet dry. There actually hasn’t been a single stream I’ve had to wade through yet, although I hear we might have to do a real ford tomorrow.

The climb takes us up onto a plateau with broad shields of white granite, soft green grass, and bright pink flowers. J lies down on the springy turf next to a deep, murmuring stream. I sit next to him, under that immaculately blue sky, and run my fingers through his curls. I look at the mountains all around us and think: “what picture could ever capture this moment? This perfection?” I always try, but a smartphone camera is simply not up to a job this monumental. It can’t capture scope – or the happiness.

We’re getting close to the pass when we pass another group of hikers. One of them, an old, Japanese gentleman, asks, “you didn’t happen to see some sunglasses back there, did you?”
  “No,” replies J. “But I have an extra pair,” and he pulls out a spare pair of safety glasses and hands them over. We all introduce ourselves, and Kachun expresses his gratitude for his new glasses over and over – it’s really the least we could do – we hollered at him in his tent the night before after he’d gone to bed, thinking he was a different friend of ours. Besides, if you’re not going to be ultra-lightweight, you might as well be able to help people out.

Not much longer and we’ve hit the switchbacks. Once you hit the switchbacks the pass is almost over. We’d tried to guess which notch in the ridge was Mathet pass and J is wrong again, but Teal and Bluesman are waiting on top. The view is spectacular on the other side of the pass too. Fat marmots try to sneak up on our trail mix.

Going down takes us over slick, glacial polish to the Palisades lake. “J, we should go swimming.”
  “You want to?” he responds, surprised. I loathe cold water.
  “It’s to beautiful not to!” So we strip to our skivvies and jump in. (Ok, I actually get my feet wet, then have to spend another five minutes talking myself back into it. I eventually dunk myself.)

After the lake the trail unrolls into another amazing vista, then another. Narrow canyons with tumbles of rock and water, impossibly green grass, waterfalls, wildflowers, endless switchbacks down, down, down, down. Down, down. I’d be glad we aren’t going up, except that I’m pretty sure the next section of trail after this is a mirror image of this, heading up to Muir Pass.

We’ve come down into a smooth, U-shaped glacial valley, back below the timberline. The golden hour is upon us, and I’m exhausted, but Bluesman has a goal in mind and he’s dragging me, J, and Teal along with him. The white walls of the valley gleam in the fading light, and the white aspens are ghostly. We see the biggest Ponderosa pine that we’ve ever seen, and waterfalls, and giant, rushing creeks, then we’ve turned and start to climb again, up into King’s Canyon.

Grouse meadow is a green jewel in the gloaming. I’m exhausted, but Bluesman hasn’t stopped yet, so I keep stumbling on in the last dregs of the day. I’m so tired I don’t care about keeping up with friends anymore – I just want to stop! Unless I want to sleep on top of a boulder, that’s not an option though, and we finally stumble into Bluesman’s camp. Teal is not far behind, and even more destroyed – his Achilles tendon is giving him so much he can barely walk. We rush our camp set up, goaded by mosquito hordes. Sleep at last, to the sound of rushing water.

Don’t want to cross here…

J and Tasty find a good spot to cross.

Flower lined paths.

Heading up to Mather pass

More pink flowers

The two blues brothers – Teal and Bluesman, on top of Mather.

I see you Mr. Marmot.

I swear they hire landscapers for some sections.

Palisades lake

Another easy stream crossing

Rivendell?

Grouse meadow