PCT Day 83
July 22, 2021
Mile: 820.4 to 843.3 (22.9 miles)
Start: Palisades Lake Island campsite
Finish: Evolution Lake cliffside tentsite
The sunrise this morning was absolutely gorgeous, tinting the clouds shades of pale orange, soft peaches and glowing golds over the mountain peaks. I was up early to start hiking but Shannon was still sleepy and a little grumpy (he will tell you otherwise but, dear reader, he is definitely not a morning person). He did not like that I was filming him as he grumpily woke up, but reluctantly he rose from the warmth of his sleeping bag for breakfast that I practically handed to him. Our food canisters were still where we left them which was wonderful because we sometimes get worried in this section of trail about black bears that are too smart for their own good. We had no idea how or why a bear would come all the way up here into rockslideland looking for food and safe to say, we didn’t have to worry about our food getting stolen.
Waterfalls abounded on the trail along with armies of marmies today. It was a gorgeous morning and we carefully picked our way through the passes and switchbacks. One point Shannon almost speared a cute little pika with his hiking pole as it dashed across the trail. The travesty! The pikas are so cute like little mini pikachus that chirp and this one wasn’t too smart as he later ran out over some other hiker’s feet. I videoed an industrious honeybee collecting pollen from mountain coyote mint plants with their beautiful purple flower fronds and scent like oregano. John Muir Trail and day hikers both kept talking about this mysterious “Golden Staircase” which we never seemed to run into. I guess you could call some of the rocky steps in the mountain a “Golden Showers Staircase” with all the hiker and mule pee everywhere on trail. Maybe that’s what they were referring to? Gross!
After a steep descent on rocky switchbacks, the trail was fast and flat for the first time in a while. We trekked through mud, glorious mud! When was the last time we’d seen mud? Probably several months ago back in Ohio. Mud meant water and water meant that we weren’t going to die from dehydration. I think we definitely have PTSD from the two months hiking in the PCT desert during a drought. From the fern gullies and lush pine forest to the wet muddy trail, it’s just so great to see water everywhere.
In the forests, Shannon and I saw a mama grouse with her three big baby grouses all cooing and clucking like mini dinosaurs as they pecked their way through the woods, not even caring that us stinky backpackers were standing right next to them. We knew we must be in a National Park because these animals had no fear of humans since they have been protected for generations from hunting and trapping out here.
Unfortunately this section of trail was super busy because of the JMT coinciding with the PCT, not to mention hiking through Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks which were seeing record visitor numbers due to Covid restrictions forcing people outside to recreate. It felt like every 10 or 15 minutes we were moving over on the trail to let hikers in the other direction pass by. Because we probably did this at least 50 times a day, it meant that if it took 2 to 3 minutes for every trail passing encounter then we were spending a lot of freaking time waiting for other hikers to pass by while we were stopped. It got to the point where it became obnoxious with how slow we were hiking and we estimated that we were spending probably at least 1 or 2 hours a day stopped, waiting for other hikers to pass us. At this rate, I wasn’t sure how we were going to ever make it to Washington before the early October snows made the trail impassable.
We paused from dodging slow hikers for a moment and found a lunch spot to relax in next to the gorgeous fields of Grouse Meadows. Our lunch spot was in the shade of some large pines with a wonderful view of a lush meadow surrounded on all sides by jagged mountains and spliced by a meandering river. Shannon grabbed water from the river for us and on his way back couldn’t help but skipping and frolicking to our lunch spot like he was in The Sound of Music. I kept singing, “…doe, a deer, a female deer” while Shannon danced and leaped his way through the sea of grass and flowers. While the water was purifying through our gravity filter, I waited for my meal to rehydrate and took the time to do a macro lens photo shoot. I was able to collect some up close pics on a variety of pine cones and industrious ants collecting sugary nectar from the gorgeous (yet toxic to humans) false hellebore plant and nearby wild flowers. It was a spectacular lunch relaxing and improving my photo technique.
The afternoon was spent on a long 12 mile slog up to Muir Pass which truth be told was beautiful yet exhausting. It seemed that no matter how much elevation you gained that “The Backcountry Stairmaster” never ended – you just kept freaking climbing. The views on the PCT/JMT were pretty epic here so that kind of kept your mind off the never ending uphill. We trekked through fields of wildflowers and followed a roaring mountain creek up the valley and into the rocky hills. No matter how many lakes or waterfalls or other beautiful sights, I kept checking my Guthook navigation app to see how far left we had to the top. It seemed like time slowed down and a mile of hiking up Muir Pass seemed to be equivalent to three miles hiking on the rest of the PCT.
I felt a bit like a diva because at points I started getting annoyed that I couldn’t hear my “The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring” audiobook with how loud the waterfalls were. Yikes! l couldn’t believe I was complaining about something so ungrateful like that and checked my ego. It was so gorgeous and stunning in the Sierras and here I was complaining like a little brat. I took my headphones out (even though The Lord of the Rings plot was getting really good) and enjoyed the rushing of the waterfalls, the whispering of the high mountain breezes and the gorgeous wildflowers.
At one point, I ran out of drinking water on the trail which in the desert would’ve been downright dangerous. Luckily here in the Sierra Nevadas Mountains, there’s so much water available that I just turned to my left and saw a flowing waterfall that I could use to refill my water bladder. Shannon also filled up his water, taking his time to grab a snack and I hiked on knowing that he’d catch up to me at the lake just south of Muir Pass. At the lake, an exhausted looking hiker guy told us we were only half a mile from the top of the pass. Well, that turned out to be the longest .5 miles of my life. This dang mountain never seemed to end and we’d gone almost 12 miles uphill with no breaks in the elevation gain. Shuffling up rockslides and boulders on the switchbacks, it took over 30 minutes to get to the top. There was no way it was only .5 mile long but maybe the altitude and the tough terrain finally got to us. I popped back in The Lord of the Rings audiobook and Frodo and his fellowship helped me get up the mountain.
At last we reached the top of Muir Pass where the Muir Memorial shelter was erected by the Sierra Club in 1930. It was built with a domed roof made entirely of local stones in the style of the Italian trullo hut. The trullo huts of Italy are made of stone with a conical roof, and no mortar. It was pretty impressive architecture and the building looked like it could withstand all of time (and so far had withstood 90 years of High Sierra winters and wildfires). At the top of the pass, the view was amazing and super windy so we ducked into the little stone hut to check it out and secure a little relief from the tumult outside. Inside the trullo hut it was much warmer as the stone walls blocked out the stiff chilly gusts coming over the alpine pass. The rock was cut and stacked so precisely that there were no gaps for the wind to sneak in – it was marvelous to find such a sanctuary in the wilderness.
The John Muir Memorial Hut had signs posted everywhere that you weren’t allowed to sleep here unless it was an absolute emergency. I vaguely wanted to stay at the hut since the PCT had very few (if any) shelters to stay at throughout its 2,650 mile length, but the hut was also filled with lots of mouse droppings. Even if it was an emergency, I would probably have second thoughts about staying in the hut having mice climb all over you as you slept. I had mice and chipmunks run over me at night in the shelters on the Appalachian Trail several times and it is not the most fun experience. One of my lowest moments on the AT was having a mouse poop on my face from the rafters of a shelter that I was sleeping in. In my dreamlike state, I thought mosquitoes were biting my face so I slapped “the bugs” in my sleep. Turns out I was smearing wet mouse droppings all over my skin that were falling like brown snow from directly above my head instead of smushing pesky insects. When I woke up the next morning, my face was covered in brown smears of rodent poo and I walked around like that until one of my AT hiker friends commented on my new face mask. The horror of waking up to realize you’ve accidentally smear mouse poop all over your face while camping is enough to make you never want to sleep in a shelter again.
The sun was getting low in the sky so we left the mouse infested Muir Hut and trekked through lifeless boulder fields for a couple more miles. Our goal was to camp out at Evolution Lake, where one of our friends from the Appalachian Trail had told us it was the most beautiful place that she’d ever been to. The country out here was truly gorgeous despite a 12 mile hell (I mean hill) climb up to Muir Pass and we were really excited to catch the tail end of sunset. There was a lake before Evolution Lake that we briefly considered to camp at but it was already pretty cold and windy and the sun was still up so once the sun set it’d probably be a pretty rough night to endure the weather.
As we walked around Wanda Lake, we saw 4 biologists carrying fishing nets and slowly walking around the outside of the lake in tall mud boots. We wondered what the biologists were looking for and we paused briefly to check out a really cool variety of Indian paintbrush flowers that were fluorescent pink while secretly spying on the biologists. It must’ve been some type of fish or amphibian that they were searching for but we didn’t linger since the shadows were lengthening in the early evening sun.
Down at Evolution Creek, we hopped across some rocks to traverse the lake inlet, which would have been pretty scary to cross if it was high water. With such an unusually light snowpack this past winter in the Sierras, the river level was thankfully low enough that we didn’t even get our feet wet. Off in the distance we spied some other hikers tenting in a cluster near a beach on Evolution Lake. Being a little antisocial since we were exhausted, we set up our tent on a rocky cliffside a little ways away from the cluster of hikers to give them some space.
We were hoping that we could see the Milky Way and the stars tonight since we had such a spectacular view of them a couple weeks ago in the southern Sierras. Unfortunately with the full moon rising earlier and earlier, it seemed like we weren’t going to have much luck with having dark skies tonight. Truth be told, the area was so beautiful and peaceful that we weren’t going to be able to stay up late and my eyes were already drooping with exhaustion and the sun hadn’t even set.
As we cooked a quick dinner on the side of the cliffs, we marveled at the dramatic peaks surrounding Evolution Lake. We were able to catch the tail end of the sunset which was quite stunning and our jaws dropped admiring the beauty in between wrestling to set up our tent in the breeze. At the northwest end of the lake the skies sparkled in brilliant golds and the mountain flanks glowed in shades of peaches and tangerines. I think one day I’d like to come back here and watch the sunset and witness the Milky Way rise up into the heavens, but it’ll have to be another time. Next time I’m also packing out an inner tube, some White Claws and fishing pole to float in the sunshine and eat trout tacos. Sounds a lot better than ramen and water!
