On Pilgrimage: The John Muir Trail (Part 3)

Before starting the John Muir Trail, I was working at REI.  I rang up a customer who was going to hike the JMT north to south, the opposite as us.  We figured we would see each other on the trail.  I had forgotten all about it when we crossed paths with a straggly looking dude who asked if I worked at REI.  We shared stories from the trail, and we had this weirdly deep connection as we were talking - a great appreciation for each other's struggles, and a general understanding of why the other one continued on despite the challenge.  He was supposed to walk with his best friend, who had to drop out early.  Neither was really prepared physically, but when his friend couldn't go on, he recognized that this was a unique lifetime opportunity, and he continued on alone.  As three weeks by yourself can be a real emotional challenge, this was truly jumping into tough terrain.  One thing he told us: beware of "The Golden Staircase."  We would later realize that this warning was not to be taken lightly.

My 'friend,' traveling south

This same day, we spent the entire day walking uphill, just to approach Pinchot Pass.  It was exhausting.  If we were going to get over Pinchot, we would be close to getting back on schedule, but we stopped shy with miles to go.  We were starting to ration our food and come up with a new plan.  But we did discover an effective way to plan our daily mileage - don't aim to go over the mountain, get right under it, start your day out with the final thrust, and spend the middle of the day walking downhill.  With this strategy in mind, we re-mapped out route, and determined that, if we were not going to run out of food, we had to stick to it.

Our schedule, more and more, was becoming very serious - we needed to get to Muir Trail Ranch, where we had mailed ourselves food, or we were going to run out.  I started eating one cliff bar instead of two, and Anita and I shared dinners when we were supposed to eat our own.  One thing I noticed was that I was rarely hungry.  I was eating a third of what I normally ate sitting around at home, and I was exercising all day, breathing thin air, carrying 45 pounds on my back, walking eight hours, topping mountain passes.  My stomach was shrinking, and I was working at a subsistence level.  But my body adapted to it, making me realize we eat WAY too much in the comfort of our homes.

Skinny stomach, powerful legs!

After Pinchot, there was Mather Pass.  We labored over this one - just a bunch of switchbacks up the side of a shadeless pile of rocks.  It was an amazing feat that anyone even built these switchbacks - clinging as they were to what seemed like a cliff.  Anita was burning out, but we knew we had to stick to the schedule.  Our stop and go pace had us looking at the top of Mather for hours as we slowly approached.

Anita struggling bravely up Mather Pass

The view on the top of Mather

Going down Mather was just as tough as climbing it.  It was steep and rocky - hard on the feet and the knees and tough emotionally because progress was so slow in the hot sun.  When we reached the lakes below, we took long breaks.  Well behind our goal for the day, we knew we needed to hike into the night.  At dusk, we stumbled upon one of the most breathtaking views on the entire John Muir Trail: the top of the Golden Staircase.

The view atop the Golden Staircase

Below lies LeConte Canyon - plenty of flat ground - something we were looking forward to.  If we were to keep on pace with our new schedule, we would have slept down there.  The Golden Staircase had other plans for us.  We pulled out our headlamps and started the steepest decent imaginable.  We quickly appreciated that we were not going UP this endless set of switchbacks, which were really stairs.  We saw headlamps coming up from below, just to find a group of ultra-athletic go-getters who were finishing up a thirty mile day (it might have been forty, I can't recall).  As we were struggling to maintain 8-10 miles a day, we were impressed and sort of dumbfounded.  About half way down the staircase, Anita's knees gave out.  She couldn't go on.  Fortunately, there were flat patches here and there, and we found one quickly and set up the tent in the dark.  I went to sleep not knowing if Anita's knees would recover and not knowing if we would make it to Muir Trail Ranch before our food ran out.  I considered possibilities for exiting the trail.  

There's a certain amount of faith you need on a trip like this, and I put my faith in Anita's body and mind to get us through this.  Despite my rational concerns over our food and her knees, I had a sort of religious sense that Anita would carry on.  She's such a strong person and had already overcome some of the toughest challenges on the trail.  I had an overriding sense that we were going to make it.  In the morning, we felt exhausted but revived, and we walked the remaining stairs right into the heart of a majestic canyon.

The morning after sleeping in the middle of the Golden Staircase