JMT Day 10- Duck Pass to Lake Virginia

July 25, 2014

Short easy day today!! Slept in a bit and took our time eating breakfast and packing up.

Trail kitchen, I loved the simplicity of it

We headed out with the Jackies and stopped for lunch at Purple Lake, which was very pretty with crystal clear water. We had a lovely lounging lunch on the shoreline enjoying the great views.

Purple Lake

Purple Lake

We continued on and up to Lake Virginia with pretty views of the Sierra range all day: rocky and beautiful. As we approached the final uphill to Lake Virginia we passed the Opposite Couple. The man was having fun and thought the JMT was "great!", his wife was miserable and asked "why are we doing this??". Thankfully I was in my usual position as the caboose and I missed most of the conversation with these people. The Jackies both looked at me funny and were glad to have an excuse to move on once I caught up to them! The trail turned to sand as we approached the lake and we took the right fork, which was the opposite direction that the Opposite Couple were headed in. We did not want to camp near them!

Endless beauty

It was super windy and therefore cold for the first few hours at Lake Virginia. We found some nice sites where we set up shop, then it was to the lake for water and laundry! The wind helped to dry our clothes much faster!

Lake Virginia

Dinner time! I lucked out and found a lounge spot with a back rest!

Writing in my trail journal

We enjoyed making it to camp earlier than normal and had fun hanging out and just chatting. We made an early, leisurely dinner which was very enjoyable! I happened to score big and found a "seat" with a backrest right next to a rock table!! A "seat with a backrest" is a rare finding! It felt so good to lounge back and eat my super delicious chicken teriyaki with rice! I had been looking forward to it all day! Yum!


The alpineglow we saw at Lake Virginia would turn out to be some of the best we'd see on trail! Starting with a pale yellow and developing into orange and finally red. Wow! The color changes happened in less than 15 minutes, and once the sun dips below the other mountains, the alpineglow disappears completely. Really glad we got to see it!

From my trail journal:

"Glad today was a shorter day, I'm still a bit tired from yesterday. It's very beautiful here, so lucky to be here and wake up in a beautiful place, then sleep in a new beautiful place- every day!! Talk about living the dream!

Been having fun hanging with the Jackies!"

Camp at Lake Virginia, elevation 10,354 feet

JMT Day 9- Red's Meadow to Duck Pass

July 24, 2014

This entry is mostly verbatim from my trail journal:

Late start as per usual... The Jackies left about 2 hours ahead of us and we made plans to meet up to camp later in the evening at Deer Creek, which is about 6 miles and 1400 ft of gain away. We got to Deer Creek in record time. We got there so fast we asked the Skirt Sisters if we were indeed at Deer Creek. We saw the sign that said something along the lines of "Deer Creek Trail", bur we weren't certain if we were actually at Deer Creek. The Skirt Sisters reacted exactly how we thought they would, totally bizarre, and said that yes, we were at Deer Creek. We were feeling good and decided to push on to the next camping area: Duck Pass. We didn't see the Jackies so we figured they too must have pushed on to Duck Pass which was another 5.5 miles and 1000 ft of gain away.


It was a great idea to push on for the first few miles as we felt great, but we were dragging for the last couple.  We ran into a PCT hiker named Topo who was very lonely and talked our ears off for way too long. After at least 30 mins of blabbing at us I had to be rude and cut her off saying we had to move on so we could get to our destination.

Wonderful views as we approached the last few miles to camp 

I was so tired that when we were within a mile of camp, I declined Daveed's suggestion of taking a break saying "I just want to get there!". We both ran out of water a mile or 2 from camp, so when we did roll in we were hot, thirsty and very happy to be right next to a rushing creek! As we approached the camp the Jackies called out to us, our welcoming committee! I was so glad to see them because that meant we were done hiking for the day! I plopped down next to them at their camp spot and didn't move for a long time! We all went to rinse off in the creek, filter water and then made dinner together.


Jackie Sue took me with her to take pictures of the alpineglow and the cool looking clouds. Looked like cotton candy!

Alpineglow starting to color the mountain

Today was hot, dry, dusty and tiring! We cruised up to Deer Creek but getting to Duck Pass was tiring! Looking forward to a short, easy day tomorrow. It's only 4 miles to Lake Virginia. We can sleep in and take our time. My feet still hurt, especially the balls of my feet, need more cushion. Big toes are still numb too... Otherwise though, my body is holding up well and is strong. Glad we met the Jackies, they're fun. Clear bluebird sky day today, but HAWT!

Sunset on camp at Duck Pass, elevation 10,171 feet

JMT Day 8- Rest Day at Red's Meadow

July 23, 2014

Showers! Laundry! Burgers! Pie! Relaxin! WOOT! Feels so good to be clean! So nice to smell good. My B.O. was out of control!

After a wonderful hot shower, I hung out in my rain gear while I waited for my clothes to dry. A bit awkward but I don't think I'm the first person to do this!

Ninja suit

The Jackies decided to hang with us and take a rest day. It's been great to lounge around and just chill. We've been sitting by the store people watching and just relaxing. Got caught up on posting pics on Instagram. After lounging we headed back to camp to sort our resupplies. We have a TON of extra food. Again! Our appetites have come back a little but not enough to eat everything we sent ourselves. We also can't fit everything in our bear cans. We finally figured out our food and packed our cans. Then we tried to eat as much of the extra food as we could! We shared it with others too!

We chilled at the picnic table in camp all evening and into the night just chatting. And eating. We met a gal who was coming off the High Sierra Route, she had some very interesting stories to share. Snow and ice and wind and cold.

Nice to have a rest day and hang out! Red's is pretty nice, café is expensive but I suppose that's to be expected. Jackie Sue hooked me up with a pretty braid after I washed all the dirt and grease out of my hair. Took 3 full washings of shampoo.

Jackie Sue hooking me up with a sweet trail braid!

JMT Day 7- Rosalie Lake to Devil's Postpile to Red's Meadow

July 22, 2014

This entry is all verbatim from my trail journal:

Calm and peaceful morning on Rosalie Lake

"Felt like an easy day today apart from my feet hurting from the downhill, as usual. Met up with the Crew and The Jackies about an hour before Devil's Postpile and hiked and hung out with them the rest of the day. Good people, glad we met them. We checked out Devil's Postpile for a bit, which was neat! Columnar Basalt that looks like hexagon tiles! Cool! Then went the short half mile or so to Red's for burgers and milkshakes! We were all so excited for real food! And salad! And pie!

Devil's Postpile National Monument, columnar basalt

Top view, hexagonal tiles

The Crew!

We got our resupply buckets and then chilled in the sitting area outside the store for several hours: chatting and beers. We headed to the backpacker's camp which was about a half mile away and set up camp. Daveed insisted on being our Sherpa and carried both our resupply buckets and his full pack. Something he regretted when we started up the short uphill section towards camp... :)

Daveed Sherpa

Met a lot of other JMTers at camp. The 3 Amigos/Oakland Boys rolled in later in the eve- with a plastic paddle sticking out of one of their packs!! Apparently they had acquired a blow up raft and paddle at Thousand Island Lake while taking a rest day there! We all hung out at the picnic table and had fun teasing the 3 Amigos about all the other heavy and bulky items they had: a large solar powered boombox, backpacking guitar, a heavy 1973 thermarest sleeping pad that leaked, etc etc.

Really looking forward to a shower and laundry tomorrow! Relaxing, napping and eating and water also sound lovely.

The trail has been great, I feel so lucky to be here. I'm so thankful. The beauty of the Sierras just gets better and better every day. I'm having lots of fun being with Daveed every day. Our bodies are holding up well, our legs are so strong! It's just our feet that hurt every day. My big toes and balls of my feet are still numb every time I take my boots off..."

Red's Meadow camp, elevation  7,700 feet

JMT Day 6- Thousand Island Lake to Rosalie Lake

July 21, 2014

Today was a day of lakes: Emerald, Ruby, Garnet, Shadow and Rosalie!

We got a very late start today, we slept in a bit knowing we only had about 6 miles to go. The storms cleared up and we woke to a beautiful morning.

Clear and calm 

Clear blue bird skies!

Another beautiful view of Thousand Island Lake from the north shore

Not a bad spot to sit and wait for Daveed

Emerald Lake

We cruised to Garnet lake and had lunch. Garnet was so beautiful!! It was kind of a smaller version of Thousand Island Lake with amazing front and center views of Banner and Ritter peaks! Garnet Lake would go down as one of my favorite lunch spots on the entire trail!

Garnet Lake

One of my favorite lunch spots on all of the trail!

The Jackies also happened to stop at Garnet for lunch! Jackie Ray went to filter water and dropped one of her bottles in the lake. Daveed jumped in after it and got it for her :)  He said he was looking for an excuse to jump in and rinse off anyways! Here is a video of his chilly swim!

http://youtu.be/ZCtBjNmaTDQ

It was hard to leave Garnet but alas, we had to carry on. I had a really hard time with the long 1000 feet of downhill to Shadow Lake. My feet were killing me and we were both dragging. When we finally got to Shadow Lake we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the clear, green lake!

Shadow Creek

The brightly colored Shadow Lake

We hoofed it straight up the switchbacks from Shadow to Rosalie Lake with no real issue. I just needed one short fruit snack break and before I knew it we were at the top!

When we arrived at Rosalie, Amelia and her crew and The Jackies were there. They had all just enjoyed a nice swim in the lake and were getting ready to make some din. We hung out with them at the lake while we filtered water and did some laundry.

We camped near a couple of really nice older gentlemen. One of them had all the "gadgets". He showed us his tiny, battery powered air pump. It blew up his sleeping pad in like a minute! I think he said it only weighed 3 ounces! He also had a Feathered Friends sleeping bag. We drooled over it as it's super duper lightweight, but also super duper expensive. And it packs down to be really small. The gentlemen had fun gawking at how many calories Daveed was trying to take in every day.

From my trail journal: Red's Meadow tomorrow for our first resupply. Really looking forward to a rest day and a shower! And laundry too, my shirt smells terrible. Lots of really pretty views today! It's so beautiful out here!

Camp at Rosalie Lake, elevation 9,352 feet

JMT Day 5- Lyell Forks to Donahue Pass to Island Pass to Thousand Island Lake

July 20, 2014

The Hail Day

"It never rains in the Sierras in the summer" <--- Not true for the month we spent in the Sierras! :)

Got a late start this morning. We started the climb up Donahue Pass (11, 073 ft) under partly cloudy skies which quickly turned to storms. The temperature dropped and it was rain and hail the whole way up the pass and the whole rest of the day! So much hail . I wanted to take a video of the hail bouncing off the ground. It was like the grass was alive with thousands of little bouncy balls!

Rain and hail clouds surrounding the pass

Starting up Donahue, just before the rain and hail started

We stopped half way up the pass to take a candy bar break and to try and get out of the wind and warm up for a bit. Even though most of the surrounding views were blocked by low lying storm clouds, we could still see back into Lyell Canyon, it was neat to see where we had come from the day before!

Candy bar break halfway up the pass, trying to seek shelter from the wind and rain

When we finally reached the top of Donahue Pass, the storm parted for about an hour, just long enough for us to dry out and warm up a bit. We took advantage of the break and ate some lunch and rested our feet.

Ninja suited and booted. Donahue Pass, elevation 11,073 ft

On the south side of the pass was our first real view of the sprawling Sierras. I had tears in my eyes as I took in the views. Wow. We were really here! We were really doing this! Surrounded by all this beauty. And we get to be here, in this beautiful Range of Light for the next 24 days. Wow. We are so lucky! As we gazed at the mountains Daveed said, pointing south at the mountains, "that's our road for the next month!!". Yes, indeed it was. What a cool thing.

"That's our road!"

Short window of sun, lunch time!

As we lunched just on the south side of Donahue Pass, Amelia and her crew passed us. And this is when we met The Jackies. We would go on to hike every day with both Jackies until Vermillion Valley Resort  and then we would hike until day 23 with Jackie Ray! As we continued down Donahue Pass, we hiked into a gorgeous meadow with beautiful little cascading falls, lush greenery and just picture perfect everything! The rain and hail started again so I wasn't able to take any pictures, but I took many, many "brain pictures". I would blink my eyes and make a shutter closing sound, imprinting the image on my brain. I promised myself I would never forget this meadow. And I can still picture it today. I took a lot of these "brain pictures" every day. I just couldn't believe all of the beautiful sights I was seeing!

We leap frogged with Amelia and her crew, who were all cold, wet and pretty miserable. We saw many people who were not prepared for the weather and we were very thankful that we had proper rain gear and that it performed well for us. We saw many who had seemingly legit rain gear, only for it to fail them, soaking them to the skin. My public service announcement is to not buy anything North Face unless you really truly test it prior to a backcountry adventure and it performs for you. A 30 minute commute in light rain does not count as testing. And even if it cost you $300, that is not a guarantee that it will keep you dry.

OK, North Face rant over.

As we continued on in the rain and hail, we started up Island Pass (10, 221 ft), which wasn't much of a pass. Yes, there was plenty of uphill, but the gain wasn't very dramatic, only about 700 feet. Nonetheless, it was still uphill. And it was still raining and hailing. Which meant the trail was flooded and we were walking upstream. It was difficult to keep our feet dry with so much water on the trail, but we did pretty well. Daveed stepped in a deep stealth puddle toward the top of Island Pass and then his shoes and feet were properly soaked. The 3 Amigos/Oakland Boys passed us by, looking absolutely miserable. One had a thin plastic poncho bought in Yosemite, the others had no rain gear at all.

When we finally arrived at Thousand Island Lake the storm started to break up. At one point Daveed exclaimed "I can sort of see my shadow!!". Thankfully the rain and hail stopped for the day, but the cold and wind stayed. We found a decent place to camp on the spongy grassy lakeshore, on the other side of the lake where everyone else had clumped together.

Banner Peak wrapped in storm clouds

Storm clouds starting to clear

Warming up!

Warming up with some hot food!

Daveed has definitely found his trail legs! He motored up and down the trail yesterday and today! He had to wait for me to catch up several times going up Donahue! He loved hiking in the hail, had a huge smile on his face all day long :) He would often stop and turn around and wag his tail at me saying "this is so much fun!!", I would laugh watching the hail bounce off the top of his head and agree that yes, this was fun! I've never seen so much hail in all my life and it was really fun to be out hiking in it-- although I think I might have felt otherwise had I not had good rain gear to keep me dry!

Thousand Island Lake camp, elevation 9,844 ft

JMT Day 4- Tuolumne Meadows to Lyell Forks

July 19, 2014

We got up early, packed it up and headed to the Grill for some breakfast. We hiked with Ethan and Haley the entire day, which was really fun. We hiked through the gloriously flat Lyell Canyon! The flat ground was so nice! And the trail was so beautiful, it followed the Tuolumne river through the entire canyon.

We got to share the PCT for awhile!

Tuolumne River as we entered Lyell Canyon

Glorious FLAT hiking all through Lyell Canyon!

Throughout the day, we saw all of the other friends from the day before and leap frogged with most of them. First we saw the Wild Boys who were enjoying some splish splash in the Tuolumne river. We kept our eyes open for a nice place to take a dip and eventually found a great spot to access the river. There was a big rock in the middle of the river that we waded out to and ate lunch. It felt wonderful to wash off all the dirt! By this time, day 4 on the trail, my legs were caked with dirt. All the pores in my legs were tiny dark circles as they were all clogged with dirt! I washed my shirt and socks too!

Lunch on the rock

Daveed and his deer friendo

Haley and Ethan

Just as we were packing up after lunch it started raining, with the thunder sounding really close by! We put on our rain gear and pack covers and hauled ass. We walked out of one storm and directly into another! We hiked in light rain for the next few hours which wasn't a big deal. All the other hikers we'd met bunched up at Lyell Forks Base Camp where we all got water and then headed up the 650 feet of gain to the next camp. We're all staged well for Donahue Pass tomorrow.

We had really pretty views all day of the canyon and as we headed up the end of the canyon we saw Donahue Pass and the surrounding peaks. We're headed up and over them tomorrow!

Donahue Pass

My trail journal notes that today was the first day that my big toes and balls of my feet went numb when I would lay down in the tent. This is something that would continue to get worse and the feeling in my toes wouldn't fully come back until about 2 months after the trail.

Camp at Lyell Forks, elevation 9657 ft