Day 60: Muir Pass

Date: Sat 6/16

PCT Start Mile: 828.5

PCT End Mile: 845.4

PCT Mileage for Day: 16.9

Total PCT Mileage: 845.4

The Highlights: snowy Muir Pass and stunning mountain lakes

Yesterday afternoon, we passed by a hiker heading southbound, hiking the John Muir Trail (JMT). This meant he had beta I wanted.

“Hello!”, I greeted. “Did you cross over Muir Pass today?” He cut straight to the chase without pleasantries. “Two miles on this side, four miles on the north side, start at 4am”. The two and four miles referred to how much snow was on each side of Muir Pass, the question everyone had as they walked toward it. I surely wasn’t the first to ask him today. “Thank you!”, I called as he hiked away.

We didn’t quite leave at 4am, but close… hiking out of camp at 4:30am, headlights lit in the dark morning sky. Shawn warned me last night, as Squishy and I compromised on 4:30am (vs 4am), that he was not going to be happy tomorrow. He was not a fan of the super early wake ups, and to tell you the truth, I also wasn’t a huge fan of packing up in the dark, but we had 10 miles to the top of Muir Pass and with plenty of snow on both sides, Squishy and I were both anxious to get there earlier than later. Most advice was to hit the pass early and attempt to get through all the snow before it became postholing hell.

Postholing is when your leg punches through the soft snow. We’d already done this a bit on some of the other passes, and if we could avoid doing too much today, all the better. In addition to significantly slowing progress, it can be painful on the skin. My legs already had plenty of tiny cuts from previous passes.

With this in mind, we tromped out of camp in the dark, Squishy leading the way with her ultra bright headlamp. We could still see stars in the sky. As the day lightened, we saw plenty of deer along the trail, out munching on their breakfasts. We’ve hoped to see a bear in the Sierra, but no such luck yet.

The climb started gradually, gently weaving upward through lush green meadows before eventually becoming rocky switchbacks, slowly winding their way toward the pass. True to yesterday’s pass beta, significant snow fields started about two miles out and the entire final ascent to the pass was through the snow. We donned our microspikes, following the boot prints up and across the mountain, stretching between islands of rock that stuck out from the snow.

*Making my way across the snow fields toward Muir Pass*

The ascent was actually not that bad, likely even easier in the snow than it might have been as a series of steep switchbacks. We reached the top, marked by Muir Hut, just before 10:30am. Not exactly an early morning over the pass, but not too bad coming from 10 miles out and finishing with significant snow travel.

*Climbing to Muir Pass, me in the center.*

We took only a short break at the hut at the pass before beginning the descent, not wanting to linger while the sun warmed the snow.

The descent from the top of the pass was gradual and we made our way down the mountain following the boot prints, which again lead between outcrops of rocks that sat above the snow.

As we neared the half frozen Wanda Lake, we cut away from the boot prints in the snow, instead following the rocks along the lake, which would eventually link up with the trail.

Wanda Lake was a beautiful site, with a patchwork quilt of cracked ice spread over the deep blue water. The mountains along the far side of the lake reflected in the waters just past the floating ice, a beautiful continuum of winterscape.

The trail followed the lake for a bit before disappearing again under snow. While we attempted to stick as much as possible to rocks, we also hiked right down small streams, and still had a fair bit of snow travel left.

I had meant to put on my pants at the top of the pass, but forgot, and each time I postholed or scraped my legs against the snow walking through the boot tracks, my skin stung like crazy. Fresh tiny cuts over the tiny cuts from previous days. So very painful. Eventually, I stopped to put my pants on, but the damage was done.

A side note here: hiker legs are not pretty. I mean, more like – pretty from afar, far from pretty. Muscularly, they look great. Hiking all day long, every day, we are turning our legs into lean machines. I love my legs in pictures right now – from afar. Don’t zoom in to skin level on those puppies. Ugh.

For starters, constantly being in the sun and going through multiple river crossings every day leaves them dry and parched, not only scaly, but we often have a white residue on them they are so dry. Beyond this there are cuts and scrapes and random bruises, all amidst the plethora of mosquito bites we have been acquiring since entering the Sierras. And now, the very painful tiny tiny grooves of cuts from the snow. Oh, and of course – a bit of hair, since I only shave whenever we get to town and shower, about once a week.

Many women hiking the trail don’t shave at all. It makes me feel cleaner, so I do it when I get the chance, but that’s only when we stay in town or get a chance to shower elsewhere. One thing is for sure: no one is calling me up to be a leg model (not to mention I’d need to be about a foot taller).

Back to our day: Once we felt like we’d made significant progress through the majority of the snow fields, we found some nice rocks to sit along the Sapphire Lake for a lunch break.

While we’d kept our lunch breaks short the previous two days, always needing to make miles to set ourselves up for the next pass, we could finally take a relaxing lunch break, only planning to hike a few more miles for the day.

While the scenery surrounding the passes we’ve crossed has been absolutely stunning, the last few days have also been fairly stressful – early wake ups, short lunches, making miles, setting ourselves up for the next pass, stressing about snow on the passes and crossing early enough in the day that it’s still hard.

Muir Pass was the big kahoona as far as snow goes, and we were happy to have it behind us. It had been stunning and the hike had been wonderful, but everyone was looking forward to “sleeping in” tomorrow (that still means waking up around 5am, but with the sun at least).

While we ate, we got a little show from a friendly marmot. No doubt he wanted some of our food, but didn’t come too close.

Around 3pm, we wrapped up our lunch break to finished the few miles we had left for the day. This hike was absolutely stunning. I sauntered in the sun past the bright blue lakes, including Evolution Lake, which looked so inviting I at least had to touch its waters. So many beautiful lakes. Worth all the effort in travel over the high mountain passes.

Our afternoon hike was short and we were at a tent site before 5pm. While it did have quite a few mosquitoes, we didn’t have high hopes that other sites would be much better, all situated in the woods near water. This site sits on a prominence with a view of the mountains and valley below, offering a front row seat (or sleeping bag) to sunset. We dealt with the mosquitos.

After eating early dinners, we mostly just laid in the tent, away from the mosquitos, waiting for the day to cool, still quite hot with the sun high even at 6pm as we approach the longest day of the year.