Picking up the food we mailed ourselves at Muir Trail Ranch
I left Muir Trail Ranch stuffed. There were tubs and tubs of leftover dehydrated food and energy bars. After skimping on food for so long, I ate and ate. Then, unfortunately, we had to climb some of the steepest corners on the entire trail! It was no golden staircase because it was significantly shorter, but Anita and I quickly became demoralized: this was supposed to get EASY! Still, we did what we'd done all along - we took a lot of breaks and just kept walking.
It didn't help that we'd just picked up the tub of food we sent ourselves, and went from having almost nothing in our packs to carrying 30 pounds of food. We were particularly excited about the two cans of clam chowder we'd sent ourselves for our first night out of Muir Trail Ranch. Cans, because of their weight, are not something you want to carry around in the backcountry, but we could make a one day exception!
Sallie Keyes Lakes - one of my favorite places along the trail.
This is what I woke up to.
That night's dinner, eaten in the same spot we shared with some deer drinking out of a stream, was the best on the trail: clam chowder with crumbled gorgonzola crackers - a Trader Joe's feast! It's funny, what was such a delicacy out on the trail is something Anita and I have not eaten once since. We'll eat clam chowder, but not from a can. It needs to be good chowder from San Francisco bay or Pike's Place in Seattle!
One of the last passes we had to cross: Selden Pass. It felt like nothing when we topped it. We were experienced and fit hikers at this point!
We were starting to close in on another big destination - the BIGGEST destination: Vermilion Resort. It's much more a campground than a resort, but it offered cold beer and hot showers. It offered restaurant food and a roof. It offered a washing machine.
To get there, we followed the John Muir Trail right out of King's Canyon and into John Muir Wilderness. There is a distinct difference between the two. King's Canyon offers spectacular views, deep valleys, lush meadows, and incredibly tall peaks. John Muir Wilderness was gorgeous, but much more modest. It was less Lord of the Rings and more Bonanza, if I had to make a comparison. It is aptly named John Muir Wilderness because I think Muir would find the modest wilderness equally as beautiful as the extraordinary wilderness. I remember thinking this when I walked through it. In King's Canyon, every day offered something radically different to look at, but John Muir Wilderness looked more or less the same. Sure, there were expansive lakes, but in between, it was more or less the same. And this is what distinguishes my small mind from John Muir's - I doubt he would have seen "the same" anywhere, and that's why I like this section to be named after him: it is just as brilliant as the rest.
John Muir Wilderness
Vermillion Resort is a boat ride away from the John Muir Trail. There are two boats a day: one to drop hikers off in the morning and one to pick hikers up in the evening. We did not want to miss the boat because we wanted our shower desperately (especially Anita). The day we woke up and made it our goal to get to the boat, I never saw Anita walk so fast. Typically, I would give her a head-start as I packed up the tent, I'd catch her early, and I'd walk much slower than I'm accustomed to, letting her set the pace. Not today! I never caught up to her. She was jamming. She smelled 'shower' and practically ran. Anita and I, two people who are always late to everything, were hours early to the boat ride.
One of the greatest challenges on the John Muir Trail awaited us, two weeks in, camped out at Vermilion. That challenge was: convincing Anita to leave Vermilion and continue hiking on the JMT.
The question: How do you leave this behind??
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