JMT // Day 10

McClure Meadow –>Muir Pass –> LeConte Canyon

18 miles

A long long day up and over Muir Pass. We had a 10 mile climb this morning to the top of the pass where stands the famous Muir shelter that can be used (for emergencies) by hikers on the JMT or PCT. After seeing so many photos of this icon on a screen, I could not wait to see it in person.

It was a beautiful pass, one of the most scenic yet, and the incline was slow so the climb felt never ending. Every hump we came up to I assumed the hut was on the other side and as we’d come up to the top, I’d see more trail and switchbacks in front of us.

There were so many rocks, giant boulders and slabs of rock, and it was very cold as we were getting higher in elevation, fully exposed. It took up most of the day, getting to the top, and we were both exhausted and relieved when we finally had the hut in sight. Seeing that hut was something I was looking forward to the whole trip, so to stop and have lunch inside of it was really exciting.

We saw a group of men and a family of 3 in the hut also taking their lunch break. The men were old friends, and they carried a hunk of cheese, a stick of salami, and a knife. The family sitting next to me, shared one of their traditions with us. Their dad usually brings a surprise treat for everyone when they reach the pinnacle of their hike. The dad couldn’t make it on this trip so the sister took on the roll and brought everyone a fruit roll up. I really like this tradition and want to do something like it moving forward. I remember seeing at the top of Half Dome a group of friends that have the tradition of each eating peanut m&m’s. I started doing this with Marc towards the end of the day since he was craving Swedish Fish and I had sent myself some in the VVR re-supply.

The wind was picking up and I was getting cold as I lost the heat from climbing. We had our lunch and headed out. A sign on the door told us to find another way past Helen Lake since the snow was dangerous. We did some wandering around for the trail after the lake but we found it again pretty easily.

There were patches of snow and creeks all along the trail and our feet were constantly wet. It wasn’t worth our time to change out of our shoes and into sandals for each water crossing, plus my shoes are pretty quick-drying in the sun, so I just walked right into the water, sock and shoes.

We were told by someone going northbound on the trail as we were beginning that there was a lot of snow at the top of Muir Pass, a total of 6 miles on either side, and that people have turned back because they didn’t have crampons and/or ice axes. I guess by the time we got to the pass, more of the snow had melted and it wasn’t a big problem for us. The real problem with the snow was that it covered large patches of the trail and we’d have to scramble our way around the snow and find the trail again.

My ankle has been hurting all day, getting more and more painful as the day goes by. I’ve been really careful with how I place my foot and using the hiking poles as crutches to lighten the pressure on my ankle.

On our descent, we came across another icon of the trail, the rock monster (whale? …idk). We weren’t expecting it, and it just popped up in our vision to the right and once again the trail boosted our spirits and I carried on for a few more miles.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get too far because my ankle did the same thing it did the night before. A shooting pain in my ankle when I step a certain way and then I can’t walk for the rest of the night. I’ve been trying to figure out what is causing it and how to prevent it so I can make it to the end without it getting worse. My mentality has been: I’ve gotten this far, I can’t give up now; if it’s not going to kill me or cause lifelong harm, then I can tough it out to the end. If I wake up tomorrow and I still can’t walk, I can take a zero and try again the next day. And if that fails, there’s a ranger station not a mile from our campsite. I was not too worried, but I was really hoping the pain would go away because it was getting in the way of me enjoying nature, being along with my thoughts, and present in the moment. All I can think about is my ankle, the pain, and every step I take.

On another note, something very exciting happened during dinner. I got up from our fire to grab something from my tent and I look over into the campsite next to our and I see a big black shadow stomping around. I call Marc over to confirm that what I’m seeing really is a bear and we watched it walk off into the woods.

It was, in fact a black bear, so we decided to let the people in the campsite know (since they were all in their tents early watching Netflix on their phones and didn’t know about the bear… ), but they couldn’t care less. The woman who gave us our permit told us the bears are more pests than anything else so we just made sure everything was locked up in our bear boxes and didn’t worry too much after that.