I was a bit concerned about today's logistics and timing, but it turns out that everything went quite smoothly. We left Bishop at about 9 am and drove down to…
I awoke to the smell of smoke. The distant smoke from the previous night that had given me such a stunning sunset had blown into Humprey’s Basin overnight. I had no idea where the smoke was coming from, so I was glad that today I would be getting off the trail. This day’s plan was to hike out to the North Lake trailhead over Piute Pass and catch a ride into Bishop, where I had reservations at the Ramada. Dave would be driving out from the Bay Area that evening and would meet me there.
The smell of smoke was a bit overwhelming – I’m sure the air was just terrific for me to be breathing in while hiking. Some of the peaks that had been so beautiful the night before were now completely obscured by the smoke. But, as I climbed the short 2 miles and 400 or so feet up to Piute Pass, I quickly got out of the smoke. It had settled in the Basin, so at the Pass I was just above it. I ran into a couple at the Pass who told me that they had heard the smoke wasn’t a fire in the Sierra at all – it was actually smoke blowing in from the Zaca fire in Santa Barbara.
Today was the day I said goodbye to my hiking friends and headed off on my own. While Mary, Michael, and Kerry continued south, I left the JMT to head…
Another beautiful day on the trail today, starting off with a climb to Selden Pass that took us by the stunning Marie Lake. I regretted not making it all the way to Marie for camp the night before, but it was a bit windy up there so at least it wasn’t a perfect spot.
The climb to Selden was easy, as was the descent past Heart and Sallie Keys Lakes. The lakes in here were beautiful – I wish we’d been able to camp around there, but the schedule just didn’t work out. Next time. A couple of miles beyond Sallie Keys the trail spit us out onto a steep hillside covered in manzanita. I swear that the temperature instantly jumped 20 degrees. As we went down the long, never ending switchbacks I found myself desperately longing for the next small spot of shade. Unfortunately, as the trail descended to Muir Trail Ranch it just got dustier, sunnier, and hotter.
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As planned, we got an early start out of Lake Edison so we could get up and over Bear Ridge before the day heated up. As it turned out the…
Today was a much needed Zero Day. Well, okay, it was really a 1/2 mile day. I awoke to the generator kicking on at 7 am. After some minutes of enjoying the cozy warmth of my beloved sleeping bag, I worked my way over to the cafe where I enjoyed an enormous and delicious breakfast. And fresh coffee, of course. Our group scheduled a meeting of the minds to figure out the plans for the next 24 hours. We had originally planned to take the next morning’s ferry back and have a long day of hiking the 13-ish miles to Rosemarie Meadow. Since the previous day we had been hearing stories about the hot and laborious climb out of Quail Meadows and over Bear Ridge and we were not looking forward to having to do this in the hot late morning since the ferry wouldn’t even leave VVR until after 9am. So, we made plans to spend the remainder of the day at VVR, but take the afternoon ferry back at 4 pm and camp at that end of Lake Edison. That way we could wake up early the next morning and get that climb out of the way before it got too hot out.
I started out on the trail at 6:50 today since we had a long climb up to Silver Pass in front of us. The climb ended up being a quite pleasant one – lots of wildflowers and scenic spots along a bubbling creek. As I climbed I noticed quite a bit of smoke to the north, and could even smell it at some times. Never figured out what it was from.
I got some of my favorite photos of the trip on the climb to Silver Pass. As the sun rose and turned the ridges and peaks orange, the reflected colors along the creek were beautiful.
On Silver Pass we met a group of three ‘Old Guys’ who were on a several day trip along the JMT. We joked around with them for a while and they advised us of the incredible food of Chef Roy at VVR. It made me hike a bit faster since that pie sure sounded tasty…
This was a long but enjoyable day. We rose early and hit the trail around 7 am. In no time at all we had reached Duck Creek where we took…
It was a lovely, relaxing day. We had heard horror stories about the long, hot climb out of Red’s Meadow, so we decided to plan a half day of hiking and only hike 7 miles to Deer Creek. We stuffed ourselves with an amazing breakfast at the Red’s cafe and didn’t bother getting on the trail until 10:30 am. We took our time and were happy to find that the reports of the trail were greatly exaggerated.
The first mile or two climbs gently through the remnants of the 1992 Rainbow Fire. I can imagine that on a really hot day the sun would be intense without the shade, but I found it to be a scenic hike through gentle terrain and enjoyed it. The trail then climbs through the shade between the Red Cones, two volcanic cinder cone peaks just south of Mammoth Mountain. A short while later, after meandering through the unburnt woods, we found ourselves at the nice little babbling Deer Creek.