Our 2007 John Muir Trail Attempt (Day 12)
Day 11 examined our travels from Quail Meadow to Marie Lake.
Day 12: Marie Lake to Muir Trail Ranch [Pictures]
Distance: 8.8 Miles
Elevation Changes: 10,550 - 10,900 - 8,000
Like the Day 10's hike over Silver Pass and down to Quail Meadow, today's hike started with a short uphill to Seldon Pass, and then a long descent to Muir Trail Ranch (MTR). From MTR, we planned on heading up the JMT through Evolution Valley (Day 13), over Muir Pass (Day 14), and to LeConte Canyon (Day 15), at which point my in-laws and the family friend would depart over Bishop Pass and head down to South Lake, where our car was waiting. The plan was for my wife and I to continue another seven days to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the terminus of the John Muir Trail.
That was the plan, at least.
Over the past several days, my wife's blisters had become exceedingly worse, to the point where there were prominent blisters on virtually every toe and on the sides and bottoms of both feet. She was spending more than an hour each night re-bandaging her blisters and was clearly pained with each step of the way, especially in the morning when starting out, or whenever we'd resume from a break. We had talked previously about whether it would make sense to throw in the towel. The trail from MTR to Mt. Whitney is the toughest portion of the JMT, with three passes exceeding 13,000 feet and many days involving a 2,500+ ft. ascent in the morning followed by a 2,500+ ft. descent in the afternoon. The average elevation exceeds 10,000 feet, whereas our average elevation thus far was probably closer to 9,000 ft. And the last third of the trail is the most distant from civilization, requiring two or three full days to of hiking to get to the nearest road. And if that wasn't enough, according to our schedule the last seven days called for an average of near 12 miles per day. Granted, we had knocked out more than 12 miles on Day 6 and Day 8 and lived to tell about it, but the past few days we had put in around 9 miles today and were feeling utterly exhausted.
So we needed to make a decision - bail out of the trail after MTR or try to push on to Whitney? And if we decided to bail out, where would we do that? From MTR it's 4.5 miles west to Florence Lake, which has a resort and road access, but that's on the east side of the Sierra Nevadas and nearly a full day of driving from our car (even though our car was about 25 miles away, as the crow flies). Another option would be to push on to South Lake, as originally planned. Alternatively, we could shortcut to North Lake. North Lake is a lake about 15 miles from South Lake, but the two are connected by road and both are popular hiking and fishing spots, meaning there's often people coming and going in the summer months. While the two lakes are not far by car, they are about six or seven days apart hiking due to a few mountain chains that are in the way. (In fact, we spent a week hiking from North Lake to South Lake in the summer of 2006.) From MTR, one can stay on the JMT for two to three days and then spend another day hiking to South Lake, or they can hike in a slightly different direction for two days and reach North Lake.
Needless to day, we had some big decisions facing us as we started off on our trek this day. As we started, my wife and I discussed our options and decided it would be smart to bail out. This was a hard decision for my wife to come by. She is a very hard working, determined person who likes to finish what she sets her mind to. She spent countless hours over the past year planning and preparing for this trek. But she came to the right decision. How enjoyable can hiking be when you're in constant pain? And at what cost does one incur to finish the JMT? And what if her blisters became so bad that she couldn't continue once we were in the deepest parts of the wilderness, days from the nearest resupply point?
Long story short, we decided to call off our JMT bid and to exit at the North Lake trail head. That didn't impact today's schedule - we still were going over Seldon Pass and down to MTR - but it meant that tomorrow we would depart from the JMT and hike the 20 miles from MTR, over Piute Pass, and down to North Lake.
We had been debating this decision for the past several days, so once the decision was made a weight was lifted from our shoulders. Instead of having another 100 miles to go, we had less than 30. The end was in sight, which raised our spirits. It also meant we could start reflecting on the experience thus far rather than worrying and thinking about what was ahead.
This decision was made as we packed up our campsite and trekked up to Seldon Pass. This stretch, and the first few miles down the other side, provided the best scenery for the day - mountain peaks, lakes, and blue skies. Here is a picture of us approaching Seldon Pass. That's Marie Lake in the background.
A couple of miles south of Seldon Pass is Sally Keyes Lake, where we stopped for breakfast.
After Sally Keyes Lake, the trail starts its steep descent, first through a thick forest and then down the side of a ridge. The views from both stretches were rather nondescript. By late afternoon we reached the bottom of the valley and made our way to Muir Trail Ranch (MTR), which is about a mile off the trail. MTR is a ranch that provides pack animal services and has accommodations and ranch-related activities for guests. Guests usually arrive on horseback from Florence Lake, which is 4.5 miles west of MTR. MTR also serves as a very common resupply point for JMT hikers. MTR is the half-way point of the JMT. For hikers going south to north, it is the first resupply point that is accessible with only a short detour off the trail. For north to south hikers, it is the last easily accessible resupply point.
While MTR is a great place to mail and then pickup your resupply packages, that's pretty much all it's good for. They don't offer any services to non-guests - no trash service, no bathrooms, no food. There is ice cold spring water you can drink, and they have a very simple store with common hiking items, but that's it. However, many hikers send far too much stuff to MTR, and end up leaving a lot of items. Or, they may be carrying too much stuff and drop off excess in an attempt to shed weight. So it's a great place to replace some of your "regular" food with something new.
Speaking of sending too much stuff to MTR, we had shipped 10 days of supplies since we were expecting to continue all the way to Whitney, but now with our exit a mere two days away, we had grossly oversupplied ourselves. We had actually mailed two resupply cannisters to MTR. We ended up mailing one of them back and then took what we needed from the second one and then donated the rest. The following picture shows a couple of JMT hikers pecking through their excess supplies and the available donations.
After getting our supplies in order, we left MTR and headed back to the JMT trail, where we set up camp for the night.
On Day 13 we departed the JMT and started on our premature exit to North Lake. It took us two-days to go the 20 miles from MTR to North Lake. I'll cover these last two days in a future post. Until then...
UPDATE [2007-11-17]: Read about Days 13 and 14.