JMT Day 18- Sapphire Lake to Bishop Pass Trail Junction

August 2, 2014

Leaving Sapphire Lake this morning was sad! It's so beautiful! Thankfully we were greeted with more beautiful views! Talk about my happy place!!

Beautiful Sapphire Lake in the morning light

Headed to Muir Pass!

Woot!

Happy Place

Here is a short video of a 360 degree view of where all the above pictures were taken: Happy Place.
http://youtu.be/ZEoa-rP39oo

We climbed up to beautiful Wanda Lake, which is one of the most beautiful lakeside walks so far. The pictures do not capture the deep blue/green color of it. Then we went straight up Muir Pass (11,991 ft). The climb was steep but was over soon enough. We got to see the Muir Hut! It was much nicer than I thought it would be. Pictures and descriptions from older books said it was drafty and creepy. It's been repaired since them. There's a new small glass window and a door with a latch. Nice to get out of the cold wind for a few minutes. I can see why the hut was built, the pass is very exposed on both sides, I would not want to get caught in a storm up here!

Wanda Lake

Headed up Muir Pass (the low point in the saddle in the middle of the frame)

Looking back down Muir Pass at Wanda Lake

Muir Hut is in sight!

Looking north from the top of Muir Pass, back towards Evolution Basin

Muir Hut! 

Muir Pass, elevation 11,991 ft

Lover of The Range of Light

Looking south from the top of the pass

The views from the top of the pass were great!! It was cool to see north into Evolution Basin where we came from, it almost looked like a moonscape of nothing but rocks and a small blue lake or two. The views to the south were incredible. The landscape just keeps getting more and more mountainous! We had a snack break at Muir Hut and watched Daveed chase Merle around in the talus. We were all feeling the altitude a little and then Daveed sprints off to chase Merle and darn near caught him! I wish I would have gotten a video of it! I told Daveed he is the only person I know who would voluntarily sprint up a talus fields to try and catch a marmot at 12,000 feet! Haha! After Daveed caught his breath, we continued on down the south side of the pass and it was down, down, down all day. Feet and knees hurt, as expected.

Headed down the south side of the pass

Tiphane and Jackie Ray crushing the downhill, that's them on the far left already way ahead of us! :)

I love this picture. Humans are so small compared to the wide, wondrous world

I took this video from the same spot I took the above picture of Daveed:

http://youtu.be/xfUTI7Rv2EU

Break time, with a view!

Waterfall/cascade right next to the trail

Merle beat us down the pass somehow! That's him under that boulder, he popped out to say hello just as Daveed was about to pass

Merle

Thousands of tadpoles in Medium Lake!

Here is a short video of the thousands of tadpoles we saw in Medium Lake. The pictures and this video are only of a small section of the shoreline, there were thousands and thousands more all along the lake!

http://youtu.be/Co5BsN4mS-s

We crushed the uphill to the pass but the downhill killed us. We spent the rest of the day descending into LeConte Canyon, which was very pretty but I already miss Evolution Basin! It's my favorite  location so far! We stopped for lunch at a gorgeous spot overlooking the middle fork of the Kings River and a small lake. There was also a pretty cascading waterfall coming off the Black Divide mountains that we could see from where we sat.

Lunch view

After lunch I reluctantly put my boots back on and we continued down, deeper into the canyon. We came across the "whale" rock, which I had seen pictures of from other JMTers blogs.

Loved this cascade

Whale!

Took forever to get to camp! We hauled ass the last 2 miles because there was thunder overhead and light rain had started to fall on us. I wanted to get the tent set up before the storm hit, but it never came. There was light rain for a mile or two but by the time we got to camp- nothing. Phew! Tiphane and Jackie Ray said it didn't rain at all in camp. I was glad to see them when we reached camp, I was so tired! I plopped down to rest my feet while Daveed climbed the boulder next to our tent several times :) Again, his energy, strength and ability to do ANYTHING after hiking all day astounds me. He climbed. I sat and took pictures :)

Tomorrow is the Golden Staircase but a Ranger said they're expecting a big lightning storm in the afternoon so we'll see...planning on an early start so we can get up and over it before the storm.

Camp at Bishop Pass Trail junction , elevation 8759 ft