Down One, Up Another

Jim meets up with Patti, Debbie, and Ted at Le Conte Ranger Station. Over the next three days, they go up and over three major passes on the John Muir Trail: Mather, Pinchot, and Glen. Along the way they experience many fine sections of the JMT, including the Golden Staircase, the Palisade Lakes, and the Rae Lakes. On the fourth day, their last together, they exit over Kearsarge Pass, down to the Onion Valley trailhead above the town of Independence.

Transcript

The more nights I spent in the backcountry on my John Muir Trail journey in 2019, the more I became familiar with the moon and sun as natural timekeepers. I met up with friends Debbie, Patti, and Ted at Le Conte Ranger Station on September 21, the transition between summer and fall. About a week earlier, the moon had been full, rising at sunset; every night since then it would rise later by a few tens of minutes. If I woke up in the middle of the night its position in the sky would give me a rough idea of how close it might be to daybreak.

What was more important, though, was the sun and the number of daylight hours. During this time of year on the JMT, that number decreases every day by almost two and a half minutes. There was now a full half hour less of daylight compared to the day I hiked from Yosemite Valley to Tuolumne Meadows, almost two weeks before.

I was a little surprised how much that mattered to me, the number of daylight hours. The thing is, I found that my morning routine - getting up, dressed, having coffee, breakfast, breaking camp - and my afternoon/evening routine - finding a good spot to camp, pitching my tent, getting water, cooking dinner - these routines had become about as efficient as they were going to get. Which, it turns out, wasn't all that efficient! And since I wanted to do the morning and evening routines in daylight, it meant less time during the day for hiking.

So I was especially thankful that, when I arrived at Le Conte, my friends had already reserved a terrific spot for me to set up my tent: flat, protected by trees, and close to water. I texted my wife Cindie with "Am camping tonight with Debbie, Patti, & Ted.  Great to see 'em!", and Jon with "Hooked up with P, T, D. They had a spot for me!" I'm pretty stingy with exclamation points normally, and I think my punctuation accurately reflected both my enthusiasm for company and the fact that I didn't need to spend any time looking for a place to camp that evening.

In addition to the food and fuel provisions that my friends had carried in for me, I was thrilled that there was also a surprise can of cold beer!

Debbie had spoken with the ranger on duty at Le Conte, and there was the usual warning about bears. We were all pretty careful about not leaving food around to attract them.

We had fifty miles to go from here to the Onion Valley trailhead above the town of Independence, and our plan was to cover that over the next four days.

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It's worth repeating that the JMT is a whole lotta up and down.  This is both a pleasure and a challenge. For me, the contrasts between the barren but beautiful alpine zones versus the green and grassy valleys was striking, over and over again. My appreciation for both grew with time.

The challenge is to overcome discouragement at a low point, and find the motivation to move upward, yet again. What I find works best is to ascend at a pace that I can keep up indefinitely, however slow that may be.

Saturday's high points were, for me, Muir Pass, and for my friends, Bishop Pass - both of these are just shy of 12,000 feet. After those high points, our Sunday morning together began with about three and a half miles of gentle descent to a low point at 8000 feet. We were there soon, and began to ascend again, toward the next zenith, 12,100-foot Mather Pass, about eleven miles away. It wasn't long before I was behind all three of Patti, Debbie, and Ted, doing my best to at least keep them in sight. We worked our way up the valley that drains Palisade Creek, and eventually reached one of the most remarkable sections in all of the JMT, the Golden Staircase.

Some excerpts from the excellent book John Muir Trail by Elizabeth Wenk describe the exposed 1,500-foot ascent we made on early afternoon that Sunday: "Impressively-built walls form the foundation for the switchbacks that make for a steep climb up a much steeper headwall.  Completed in 1938, this was the last section of the JMT to be constructed... The route-finding required to build this trail is impressive... tight switchbacks take you up one gully, only to have it dead-end in cliffs. You then traverse seamlessly to the next passable gully, slowly working your way up the steep face."

I had my own mini-event with the Golden Staircase. Still lagging behind my friends, I found my mind wandering. I missed a switchback, was on the precipice of one of those dead-end cliffs, and suddenly realized "Oops, this can't be right!". I turned around, got back on the trail, started walking, only to say again, in less than a minute, still on the trail, at least, "what the heck, why on Earth am I descending?!?" I stopped, tried to focus, did an about-face, and headed in the correct direction on the trail - uphill, that is - and soon was back to where earlier I had missed the traverse. I caught it this time, and was finally going the right way.

Well, by now my friends were out of sight. No big deal, it wasn't long before I came upon them, as they had stopped for a break and waited for me, as I knew they would. I was too embarrassed to mention my mishap.

Shortly after finishing the Golden Staircase, we arrived at a sequence of lovely lakes, the Palisade Lakes, below peaks of the same name. With a couple of hours left before sunset, we settled on a camping area that was about a hundred feet above the second lake, but very near a stream flowing into it. We had made good progress toward Mather Pass, and were poised to summit it early on Monday.

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I enjoyed the simple pleasures of backpacking with friends: greetings in the morning; sharing food and drink, perhaps; often silent but always joint gratitude for our JMT experience together; offering and receiving assistance in a variety of circumstances, like stream crossings, water purification, navigation, and route finding. It was a wonderful group to be a part of.

The short story for the next two days is:

Monday: up and over Mather Pass in the morning; other-worldly alpine environment in Upper Basin; closed-for-the-season Bench Lake Ranger Station; camp near Marjorie Lake below next pass.

And Tuesday: up to Pinchot Pass in the morning, trail talk there with a rail-thin northbound PCT hiker; long and steep descent - almost eight miles and over 3600 feet - to a spectacular suspension bridge, very bouncy, with a sign "ONE PERSON AT A TIME ON BRIDGE"; then, five-mile 1800-foot ascent to camp at crowded Arrowhead Lake.

My words to Cindie using my satellite communicator tell more of the story, at least from my perspective. On Monday morning I told her "...Am traveling with the group now, AOK. High mountain passes over the next few days." Later that day I said "...we've found and set up camp. I am getting weary, we have a long two days ahead to get to the trailhead above Independence."

Before dawn on Tuesday, I asked her "Can you help me out? Call my hotel in Independence. Tell them I expect to arrive around 7pm on Wed, and don't need a ride from Onion Valley. Debbie will give me a ride from the Onion Valley trailhead to the hotel."

Patti, Debbie, and Ted were very accommodating as far as (1) agreeing to the somewhat leisurely time of 8 am to start walking each morning and (2) aiming to locate campsites a couple/few hours before sunset.  Since they all had to get back to their normal lives in a few days, this was especially generous. I'm certain they could have easily made it to Independence way sooner than 7pm on Wednesday.

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Having to summit one mountain pass per day on the JMT is difficult enough. But Wednesday, our last day together, we'd have to first go over Glen Pass at 12,000 feet, then descend to a low point before heading up and over Kearsarge Pass, almost as high. It would be a long day, a total of fifteen miles to Onion Valley.

I had noticed recently that my left trail running shoe had developed a serious tear in the fabric. I noticed similar wear on the other shoe, with tearing imminent. I became a little paranoid about my shoes. The last thing I needed was for them to fall apart. I patched up the one with orange duct tape, but didn't think that was really going to help.

We decided that we'd start earlier on Wednesday, 7am instead of 8, to give us some margin in getting to Onion Valley before sunset.  The early morning walk was through the popular Rae Lakes area. I think Patti and Debbie had both been there before at least once, but it was all new to Ted and me. The first light and color on the surrounding peaks that morning was almost supernatural. The weather was magnificent. The climb up to Glen was grueling.

We summited at about 9:30am. With another pass still to go, we were thankful that our next low point was only about 1000 feet down. We reached that point soon, and shortly after left the JMT on the trail toward Kearsarge.

I remember Patti mentioning something about upcoming switchbacks.  I had been on a Sierra Club weekend backpack in this area a few years earlier, and my recollection was that our ascent over to Kearsarge now would be a long and gentle upward traverse, without switchbacks. I was wrong, a victim of wishful thinking, I suppose.  Especially near the end of the climb, there were indeed, demoralizing switchbacks.

We reached the Pass a little after one in the afternoon, and encountered a good handful of people there, mostly day hikers from Onion Valley. We exchanged greetings and enjoyed the usual hiker small talk. We took pictures for them, and they for us.

This would be our last rest stop as a group. Each of us negotiated the remaining five miles down pretty much as individuals. At any given time, either Ted or I would be at the back. As one of us took a break, the other would pass him, and so our positions would be swapped.

At one of these encounters Ted asked me "So you'll be going up there again...?" I had been asking myself the same question. A hotel was waiting for me that night in Independence, where I'd get my last re-supply. I'd have to re-trace my steps and ascend over 2500 feet and seven miles just to get back to the JMT. The option of calling it quits had been dormant in my mind for days.

But, as I passed Ted, I said only "Can't think about that, right now just need to get safely down to the trailhead..."