On Pilgrimage: The John Muir Trail (Part 4)

The morning I woke up in LeConte Canyon, Anita was still asleep, which was normal.  I never forced an early start on her because she was struggling to get any sleep at all, and the morning was usually a time she finally found her rhythm.  Her sleeping bag was rated for zero degrees, but she froze every night.  That was her one big complaint from the trip.  But the morning I woke up in LeConte Canyon, I made my way down to the river and started filtering water, as I usually did while I waited for Anita to wake.  In front of me was a beautiful river and beyond it, a huge meadow.  On this morning, a deer suddenly popped out of the trees next to me, had no idea I was there, and waded through the river to get to the meadow's side.  I sat in silence, like I was in church.  When the deer was in the meadow, she grazed for a bit, and I could tell she was wanting to come back over.  She still had no idea I was there.  I grabbed the camera in time to catch her wading back to my side with very tall, long strides.  Here's the picture:

Right after I took the picture, as I sat back in disbelief at the luck I had in viewing this amazing scene, the deer promptly squatted and pissed in the water, upstream of where I was filtering.  I was then shaken back into the reality that, as beautiful as it was, I was probably drinking animal piss along the way.

Because Anita and I were way behind our plan, we had to seriously reconsider our food.  We restructured our schedule, knowing that this time, if we didn't make our destination, we would be out of food before Muir Trail Ranch, the place we mailed ourselves a bucket full of grub.  As much as our bodies were being honed into shape, I don't think our pace ever increased.  Walking into the night became customary.  My hope rekindled when we started meeting our goals, and we weren't terribly exhausted at the end of each day, like we used to be. 

Here are some pictures from my favorite pass: Muir Pass.  It's a serene, contemplative climb that we made in two days.  Unfortunately, it got colder and colder as we got higher and higher.  We topped it the morning a big storm was rolling in.  Because of the storm, the top of Muir Trail Ranch was freezing, and snow was likely.  There is an emergency hut up there because it is an exposed pass and weather hits it quickly and harshly.  We didn't want to have to use it.  We knew that the only way to face this storm was to get to a lower elevation, and we hurried down the freezing mountain.  

The night before we topped Muir Pass

Helen Lake, close to the top

The emergency shelter on Muir Pass, as "Winter in August" was rolling in.

Appropriately named after John Muir

The other side, as we're coming down, trying to drop elevation in the freezing cold.

The storm really struck us the following day, just one day before we were going to reach Muir Trail Ranch.  We learned later that it would be called "Winter in August."  We were careful in planning this trek to bring anything we might need, including serious rain gear.  When it started snowing on us, we were glad for it!  Our strategy, which was also good for getting to Muir Trail Ranch, was move, move, move!  If you stop and rest, you get cold.  So as it snowed on us (more like large hail that stuck on the ground), we just kept walking.  

As we were walking alongside a raging river, some deer came against us, using the same trail.  To the left of us was a drop-off to the river, to the right of us a steep incline.  The deer didn't know what to do.  It was a mom and two babies.  They stopped, turned around and ran away from us.  But they really didn't want to go back to where they came from, so they quickly stopped, turned around, and ran straight at us!  We were stunned and we froze.  When they go within about fifteen feet, they suddenly jumped off to the side, up the ledge, and timidly waited in the snow, hoping we would just continue on.  It was one of our more intimate encounters with wildlife!  

The snow stopped just as we found a place to rest for the night, which was really perfect.  I set up the tent without being pelted by hail, and we looked forward to sunnier days ahead.  The next morning, we ate our last food: two bars we packed for an emergency.  We were completely out, but just a few miles from Muir Trail Ranch.  I was skinnier than I'd ever been, but not really hungry.  It was amazing to me how little I ate leading up to Muir Trail Ranch.  That all changed when we got there and found tubs and tubs of unclaimed food, free for our picking.  We had a HUGE lunch of cliff bars and trail mix and breathed a sigh of relief as we packed our food that was waiting for us and prepared ourselves for the next leg of the journey to Red Meadows Resort, where our next tub of food was waiting.  

Things can get hairy out there.

The morning we ate our last bites of food, just outside Muir Trail Ranch.

Muir Trail Ranch - where our food was waiting for us.  There are only two passes north of Muir Trail Ranch, neither even close in elevation to what we'd already encountered.  We knew we had made it past the hardest sections of the JMT (and we weren't going to starve to death)!