And in Reflection . . .

The ending of the trip came a bit too suddenly for me, as I had woken up that morning in the intense alpine solitude of Guitar Lake. My first thought was that it was entirely unnatural to be ending the trip, and that my first desire was to go down into Bishop, reprovision, get some Tevas and hit the trail again. This was truly a milestone, in that the allure of clean clothes, cold beer, a warm bed and Mexican food did not have their usual effect on me. I could have easily turned around and walked back to Yosemite.

This had been a special time. We lived for three weeks in constant, stunning natural beauty. We met wonderful people, and enjoyed the company of hundreds of like-minded souls we met on the trail. There were no bears, and though I'm happy to have avoided the encounters, I wish we had a few good bear stories to tell: "I wrenched my Clif Bar out of the savage's teeth and swallowed it whole - ha-ha-ha-haaaa!"

One of my favorite moments of the whole experience was when, at about 9:00 the night we came out, we walked into the long-awaited Mexican restaurant in Bishop. I was wearing more or less the same thing I'd worn the whole trip (a dirty shirt, dirty boots and dirty shorts), but suddenly, under the bright lights of the restaurant, in full view of several dozen couples out on their Friday night date, I felt like complete scum. And I loved it.

Eternal thanks to the Egg Lady, Canteen Man, Ranger Rick, Rich and Matt for the hash browns and hacky sack, Mother Nature for the good show, Kate for the great chow, Limmer Boots (200 miles and no blisters), the couple with the llamas, Russ and Kate at the MTR, fate - for making all the transportation go just perfectly on the way out, EWA for meeting me in Reno, the Bay Area Rapid Transit District for its good name, Dr. Pete for the free medical advice and last but not least, Bart - for your wonderful companionship and for putting up with the feet and the knees, and Ginie, Conor, Galen and Barlo for understanding how badly Daddy needed this trip.

The last three weeks were dedicated to John Muir. You rock.

Day 19: Guitar Lake to Whitney Portal

I hate to throw a damper over the culmination of such a great trip, but for me, the glory of our journey was going to end just three miles up the trail - at the 13,560 junction with the trail coming up the other side. That would be the point where we would run headlong into a mass of people coming up the trail from the other side via la routa tourista - the tourist route. Mt. Whitney is the highest peak in the lower forty-eight, and it is far too popular for its own good. Hundreds and hundreds of people climb it each summer day - though their numbers are limited by quota - requiring those making the round trip to climb 6,000 vertical feet over the ten mile hike from the Whitney Portal trailhead. The sounds difficult, and it is - particularly for those who spent the night somewhere down in the Owens Valley, many thousands of feet below the parking lot. An alternative is to stay in one of two horribly misused camps en route, the pleasant Outpost Camp at 10,367 or the awful, dusty wasteland of Trail Camp (12,000).

As you can tell, I was not wild about having the good feelings of the past three weeks affected by legions of people. But, the north end of the trip ends in the Yosemite Valley, which is visited by four million people a year, and the south terminus was here. Pick your poison, I guess.

The hike up the west side en route to the trail junction was beautiful, and though it rose more than 2,500 vertical feet, it took us just a few hours and gave us no trouble. From Guitar Lake, the trail climbs diagonally along a steep southwest shoulder of Whitney, eventually leading to some spectacular, winding switchbacks near the junction. At the 15,560' junction, the trail cuts north toward the summit.

At this point, the remainder of the climb covers just 1,000 vertical feet and under two miles, but we were now well above the highest point we'd been, and altitude was beginning to take its toll.

When we reached the junction, the packs of Team Bean were there, as they had gone ahead to the summit with just their water bottles. We also saw the dreaded horde of touristas, stretching out over the trail in both directions. After being in the company of only savvy, fit backpackers for so long, it was hard to take. Many of the people hiking to the summit had come only for the day, and were seriously feeling the altitude. There were as many people sitting on the edge of the trail gasping for breath as there were hiking!

The early part of the trail to the summit goes up and down through a series of spectacular rock formations, and there are three wonderful "keyhole" views of the Owens Valley to the east through gaps in the rock. From that point on, the trail quality progressively degrades, as it gets closer to the summit, finally dissolving into a mass of use trails on the final approach ridge. At the bottom of this ridge, the altitude hit me too, and I simply ran out of gas. The air was too thin, and was not getting enough oxygen in each breath to keep up a pace of more than a few steps at a time. Julian plunged ahead for the summit, while I sat down on a rock to compose myself.

Both of us had been having trouble sleeping at the higher elevations, as a persistent altitude buzz made us feel like we'd had a couple of double lattes before going to bed. I usually got through this problem by taking two or three aspirin, which for some reason makes that problem go away. I thought it might work again here, and took two tablets from our first aid kit. Bingo. Within five minutes, I felt like a teenager, and sprinted up the ridge to meet Julian at the summit overlook. He was quite surprised to see me, having left me for dead below a short time before.

When we reached the summit, there were easily fifty people there, all cluttered around the rock slabs that define the highest point on the ridge. Each party, among reaching the top, predictably produced still or video cameras and methodically took pictures of each person in the group, alone, and in various combinations with the other members of their party (we did the same thing). I was reminded of the busloads of Japanese tourists I used to often see do this in front of the Golden Gate bridge.

We still had a bit of instant chili and a lot of dried chilis, so in the shadow of a rock, we made a massive lunch - too massive, I think - then headed down. To complete Julian's documentary, we had also recorded some tributes to loves ones, orthopedists, etc.

Save for a few hundred feet of ups and downs on the trail below, we now had no more uphills to be climbed. It was Miller Time, and we headed for the parking lot . . . albeit 6,000 painful vertical feet and ten miles below us.

After the junction with the trail down to Guitar Lake, the trail climbs up and over the 13,620' Trail Crest and then begins a descent down the steep, rocky switchbacks on the east side of the ridge. There had been warnings along the trail about an extensive blasting project on this section of the trail, and we were given a firsthand look at the hard work involved in creating this part of the trail. A knee-wrenching 1,600 feet later, we arrived at the dusty, crowded Trail Camp, which is provided by the Park Service as a place to camp for many dozens of summit-bound travelers each night during the summer. It was the antithesis of where we'd been so we shuddered once or twice and kept on moving.

After two more hours of hiking down the stunning valley below Trail Camp, I arrived at the parking lot, having dashed ahead to try to meet Kate by the agreed upon time of 5:00. I arrived about 5:15, and she wasn't there yet, so I wandered up the road to the small store there to pony up $3.00 for my first Corona in over two weeks. Team Bean was still there, and we visited for a few minutes before their shuttle arrived to take them down to Lone Pine. Julian arrived several minutes later, in surprisingly good shape for the knee pain he'd been feeling on the descent. And then, within minutes, Kate, Diana and Rick drive up the road in a shiny new rental SUV, and we knew the trip had come to an end.

Photos: Kent and Julian on Top of the World, View North from Whitney and Trail Down Whitney

Day 18: Tyndall Frog Ponds to Guitar Lake

With just two days left, we were beginning to sense that our extraordinary trip was almost over. Our fantasies about cold beer, Mexican food and showers became more vivid, as did those about warm sleeping conditions, clean clothes and different footwear. We were, though, very much looking forward to this day of hiking, as it would allow us to return to two of our most favorite spots on the trail, Bighorn Plateau and Guitar Lake.

Team Bean, true to their regime, was up and out of camp by 7:00. They too were camping that night at Guitar Lake - a popular staging ground for those climbing Whitney from the west - and they promised to save us a campsite, as the lake can get quite crowded. We headed out a short while later, because we wanted to reach Bighorn Plateau while there was still morning light.

After a short, gradual climb over the shoulder of Tawny Point, we reached the plateau. Bighorn Plateau is a spectacular, barren expanse of sand and gravel, punctuated with age-old foxtail pines and lupine. To the east, the dominating hulk of the Whitney massif towers into the skyline, and far off to the west, across the Kern Canyon, stretch the many peaks of the Great Western Divide. Near the top of the plateau is a small, reflective lake, which was totally still when we arrived.

The features of this plateau - the views, the lake, the solitude, the sand and the sky combine to form a picture of perfection unlike any other we had seen, and this was far and away our most favorite place on the trail. We sat for a time high up on the sandy plain, and then meandered slowly through the impressive grove of foxtail pines leading down the trail.

This grove is like a natural museum. Foxtails, and their remarkable cousins, the bristlecones, are beautiful by their nature, and each tree is quite different from any other. As the trees grow, their bark splits to reveal a beautiful, yellowed wood underneath, which twists and bends as the tree ages, giving a sense of a tortured life in the rugged mountain environment. The tree retains this beauty as it dies, as it finally falls over onto the forest floor, and literally until the moment it is reclaimed as dust by the earth below. There are hundreds of such trees in the grove below Bighorn Plateau, and because each tree is so remarkable in its own right, it takes a long time to hike through this place - particularly if you have a camera.

For the next five miles, the trail hugs the west flank of Mt. Young, as it travels up and down through mature forest cover. It was dusty and fairly warm, but the trees helped, and we had an easy time of it. Somewhere in the middle of all this, we stopped for a rest, and met a variety of people passing us on the trail. The first of these was a couple - he from Willets (California) and she, from L.A. - who were making the popular, week-long trek between Keersarge Pass and Whitney. As a happy ending to an earlier story on the trip, she told us that the day before, she had graciously given her space blanket to a fellow in need on the trail. Space Blanket Man had gotten his wish, and was on his way to Mammoth.

The Egg Lady Cometh. We were still chuckling over how dreams can really come true in the Sierras when along came a well-dressed young woman carrying a dozen eggs. She looked like she had just come from the corner store, but the closest corner store required a twenty-five mile hike via Whitney's 13,620' Trail Crest. She politely endured our male -oriented snide remarks about whether this particular store had any cold beer left, and declined our various offers of Smartwool socks, breakfast mix and the like in exchange for enough eggs to make a nice omelet. It turned out that she was the backcountry ranger at Crabtree (at the base of the western side of Whitney), and had just picked up her food supply - delivered by helicopter - for the next few months. This was now September 2, and those twelve eggs had to last her until mid-October. Since we would be drinking cold beer and devouring large combo plates of Mexican food within forty-eight hours, we backed off.

Crabtree was just a few miles further on, and we then turned east and headed up the long valley leading to Guitar Lake.

The last time we were at Guitar Lake, we had arrived approximately fifteen minutes before a major rainstorm broke, and had erected our tent and boiled soup water just in time to jump inside before the deluge. We were delirious at having cheated the weather, and later had a fabulous walk along the water's edge after the storm passed. That was a magical day, with low, wispy clouds obscuring the mountain tops and the anticipation of bagging Whitney the next day. We had great memories of this place.

The Crabtree ranger had told us that the week before, there had been seventy-five people crammed into the sparse campsites at the lake, and we approached that day wondering how bad the crowds would be on this visit. To our surprise, as we crossed the last saddle before the lake, it wasn't that bad. Team Bean had saved us a nice camp on the north shore of the lake, and, a short while later, Birthday Girl and her mate arrived. We were happy we would be around the following day for her celebration.

Because the valley we were in was oriented east-west, rather than north-south, the sun stayed around much longer that day, and we all stayed outside talking for a long time. We were all energized by the anticipation of the next days climb, and paid little heed to the other thirty or so people who trickled into the basin as the evening wore on. Birthday Girl, on the last day of her fifty-ninth year spent over an hour doing yoga in the waning sunlight on the far side of the lake. She was a great lady, and if I am half that fit when I'm fifty-nine, I'll be thrilled.

Photos: Bighorn Plateau and Mt. Whitney from Bighorn Plateau

Day 17: Center Basin Creek to Tyndall Frog Ponds

Since we remembered Forester Pass as being quite difficult, we made a concerted effort to get out of bed and underway early. We drank a silent toast in the morning to the fact that, after today, we had just two more breakfasts of "that shit" to go.

As we packed, we noticed a disturbing change in the weather. It had been a perfectly clear day when we awoke, but as we looked to the west, a large, fast-moving band of dark clouds came into view, and by the time we were ready to go, they had nearly filled the sky. Remembering that Sierra thunderstorms don't usually get going until midday, we decided to bolt for the pass - which was 4.5 miles away - and hope to get over it before the storm broke. Before leaving, we woke up Ken and Mike, who had been sleeping, and suggested that they too might want to get going.

When Julian and I had crossed Forester Pass before, it was on the second day of a 50 mile trip between Keersarge Pass (near the Onion Valley trailhead) and Mt. Whitney. Before going over the pass, we had had only one night at altitude, and that was at Vidette Meadow (9,550). We had not really had sufficient time to acclimatize, were on the trail much later in the day, and certainly were not in the kind of shape we were in by that point on the JMT trip. Because of this combination of factors, it had been a real struggle to get to the top of the pass, and we were exhausted and gasping for breath by the time we got there.

What a difference it was this time around! In the cool morning air, with our now very light packs, we breezed up the trail that morning, and were surprised to see that, in our current perception of things, the trail to the summit was one of the best we'd seen on the trip. We also felt guilty having woken up Ken and Mike, as the front we'd seen approaching had now moved off to the north.

Space Blanket Man. About a quarter mile from the pass, we stopped to talk to a man who was on day two of a nine day blitzkrieg to Mammoth. To save weight, he was not carrying a sleeping bag or a tent, but had planned to wear his long underwear and raingear to bed, then wrap himself in a space blanket. Unfortunately, the space blanket had self destructed the day before, and he was now without a source of warmth. He optimistically predicted that someone would have a spare somewhere down the trail. Yeah, right . . .

We were at the pass by 11:00, and were barely breathing hard. Fitness is a wonderful thing, and I was now beginning to feel like Superman.

Forester Pass proper is a very narrow notch formed by the downslopes of 13,973' Mt. Stanford and 13,888' Junction Peak. From the north, the trail had risen quite gradually, through a basin of small, alpine lakes and talus slopes, but to the south, the trail drops away down a near-sheer precipice to a large, expansive plain with impressive views of the Great Western Divide away in the distance. The trail down the south side is an astounding feat of engineering, as the cliff face is so nearly vertical at that point. The switchbacks are stacked upon each other so close together that one can literally touch the head of someone below them on the trail, and at one point, I found myself reaching out to hold on to the rock wall, guardrail style, because the trail was so narrow and the drop below me, so severe.

At the bottom of the switchbacks, the trail levels out and begins a long, enjoyable stretch through the grassy plains below. It must have been market day for the local marmot population, as they were everywhere. It was also very windy out, making it colder than we would have preferred, but the remainder of our hike that day was an easy one, and we could relax and enjoy the scenery.

A few miles past the pass, we stopped for lunch in the wind shadow of a large rock, and enjoyed talking with the many people who came by us on the trail. We were starting to notice that many groups who had been on the trail at the same time as us were now starting to bunch up as we got closer to Whitney, and it was nice to swap stories with so many others who had done the same trip. It wasn't long before Ken and Mike came down the trail and stopped. They had heeded our warning about the storm to such an extent that they had not even had breakfast - they just packed and sprinted for the pass. They gave me the surprising news that a group of four from Maine were headed down the trail behind them.

After a few minutes, my fellow Mainers showed up. The group, all employees of L.L. Bean (of course), had traveled the trail in just two weeks, making an aggressive sixteen miles a day, getting up early, and carrying extremely light packs, per the dictum of their weightmeister Chris. They looked none the worse for wear, and we enjoyed a nice talk with them before they headed off down the trail in search of a warmer place for lunch. Julian immediately dubbed the group "Team Bean."

As with all travelers who make use of guidebooks (the weight-conscious Team Bean were only using pages of their guidebook), we often followed the suggestions of the guidebook author in deciding where to camp, how to travel etc. On this day, we had read in the book that the Tyndall Frog Ponds offered "warmish swimming," and made plans to spend the night there. The ponds were just over five miles from the pass, and we easily made it there by 4:00 - a short and painless day.

Now Thomas Winnett, who wrote an otherwise excellent guidebook, must have spent too much time in the mountains, because his standard of warmth and ours were entirely different. I was so in need of a warm swim that I had my boot off to test the water before we'd even found a campsite. I had great expectations, of course, and imagined something on the order of your average bathwater. Nope. It was cold to the touch, and being no great fan of frigid mountain water, I passed on the swim. Julian, who loves cold water, and who had swam every day on the trip, proclaimed it the coldest water he had experienced on the trail. Buy the book, but cross out the passage about "warmish" on page 44.

The Team Bean gang arrived a short while later and were similarly disappointed at the swimming conditions. After dinner, we stopped by their camp to chat, and enjoyed checking out their tent - a homemade tarp with mosquito net flaps that weighed two pounds and slept four. A large piece of Tyvek building wrap served as the floor. They had ridden out the three serious storms in it, and it had served them well over almost 200 miles of trail. Check out your Bean's catalog - maybe they'll sell 'em some day.

Photo: Forester Pass from the South

Day 16: Rae Lakes to Center Basin Creek

In the four previous days, we had, in quick succession, crossed Muir, Mather and Pinchot Passes, and had a reprieve only during our short hike to Rae Lakes. Now we were back at it, with Glen Pass confronting us today, and the formidable Forester Pass the day after.

Glen Pass (11,978') was a relatively easy affair, being just 3.5 miles and a climb of 1,300 feet away. After a cold night, we got on the trail at 8:15 and were at the pass by 10:00. Being early in the day, it was still very calm, and we enjoyed a long rest at the dramatic knife-edged ridge that forms the pass. The back side of the pass is sheer torture - as we recalled from our last hike in the area, and we were happy to be going down the dusty switchbacks instead of up. We spent the next two hours walking downhill - finally bottoming out some 2,500 vertical feet and five miles later at Vidette Meadow, where we stopped for lunch. It was hot in the valley there, and we spent out rest stop soaking in a cold spring that ran through the meadow.

Our goal for the night was a low-grade campsite (so said the book) at the crossing of Upper Basin Creek, and we were going there only for the purpose of positioning ourselves to get a head start toward the 13,200' Forester Pass. The last time through, we had come over the pass from Vidette Meadow, and remembered having a difficult time of it. By getting to the creek crossing, we would knock 1,000 vertical feet and three miles off of our climb, leaving an ascent for the morning of just 2,700 feet.

To our surprise, when we got to the crossing, there was a very nice camp available, with a broad, living room window-type view down the valley. In addition, our friends Ken and Mike were there camping, and it was nice to catch up, as we had not seen them since Julian passed them on the way down the trail from Pinchot Pass.

It was cold again that night, and we were once again in bed (in our raingear and every other stitch of warm anything) by 7:30.

Photos: Painted Lady over Upper Rae Lake; View South from Glen Pass

Day 15: Woods Creek Crossing to Rae Lakes

Thankfully, our efforts of the past few days had now placed us in a position where we could enjoy a short hike of just six miles up to Rae Lakes. Though it too was overcrowded at some times of the year, it is that way for good reason, being one of the most beautiful spots in the Sierras. As we were now in the weekend before Labor Day, most summer tourists had cleared out of the backcountry, and we had seen just one other party at Woods Creek. We properly suspected that there would not be too many people at the lakes.

We got a good nights sleep the night before in the relative warmth (about 35') at the lower elevation of the crossing (8,547'). Amazing as it may be, with all the hyperbole going around, we still had not seen or heard a bear anywhere in the backcountry on the trip. From this point forward there would be bear boxes at all of our camps.

The hike to Rae Lakes, though short, still involved a climb of 1,200 vertical feet up an exposed, dusty trail, and we were pretty tired by the time we reached camp at 11:30. True to our predictions, there were not many people at the lakes, but it was obvious that the place could be a real horrorshow in the middle of the summer - there were campsites everywhere! On the trail that day, we met a woman who had hiked the trail and would be celebrating her 60th birthday on top of Mt. Whitney (a.k.a. Birthday Girl). An inspiration to us all.

It was a sunny day, albeit quite windy, and we took advantage of our free afternoon to do some laundry - everything but one pair each of Smartwool socks, having learned our lesson at Evolution Valley.

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, the very precise, perfectly coifed Rae Lakes backcountry ranger walked into our camp: "Hello, I'm Rick, and I'm your Rae Lakes Backcountry Ranger," he said. I've never met a backcountry ranger quite like him, and I was almost expecting him to hand me a wine list and tell me about the nightly specials. "Hi there, I'm Kent, and I'm your Rae Lakes camper," I replied. We used the occasion to tell him about our experience with Canteen Man up on Mather Pass. "Oh, that's John," he said rather matter of factly. It seemed that the rangers were monitoring John's progress through the range. He actually had a valid wilderness permit, and was intending to go from Keersarge Pass to Mammoth Mountain - about 110 miles. The latest update was that he was going out of the mountains at Bishop Pass to resupply - he was living on a steady diet of nothing more than white flour!

As the sun went down at Rae Lakes, the evening light put on a wonderful show as it reflected off the distinctive Painted Lady peak and Fin Dome, both of which tower over the lakes. Julian and I darted back and forth along our side of the lake to view the alpenglow from different vantage points and to try to capture the moment on both film and video. I also had some enjoyable moments playing my harmonica, as I used to play often but now only seem to ever break it out when I'm in the mountains.

Photos: Foxtail Pine on Trail to Rae Lakes; Fine Dome over Middle Rae Lake

Day 14: Upper Basin to Woods Creek Crossing

When we awoke at our ersatz campsite, I was pleasantly surprised to see that we were in truly one of the most beautiful places on the entire trip. The wide, wide basin was surrounded by jagged peaks of every imaginable color, and the rising morning sun illuminated the mountains to the west with a soft, warm glow. Our camp was at the junction of two small creeks, which flowed through a meadow covered with mosses and wildflowers. As I turned circles on top of a rock to take it all in, I reflected how these emergency campsites - like the ones at Palisades Creek and Evolution Basin - had turned out to be among the best on the trip. Dare to be different - camp off piste.

It had been very cold last night, and the tent was covered with ice. It was 20' when we awoke, and our morning ritual of waiting for the sun to hit us took longer than usual. We were on the trail at 8:15, and Julian's pack weighed at least three pounds more due to the weight of the soaked tent.

It was a testament to the value of our pre-trip conditioning that we were able to get up and go that day without any pain. The 13 miles of the day before (and 16 the day before that) would typically have caused me to wake up feeling extremely stiff and sore. As it was, we both hit the trail with nary a tingle. Julian's feet were also beginning to adapt to those boots (or the other way around), and he was feeling much better. My back pain had completely subsided.

The night before, we had not made it quite as far down the valley as we would have liked, so our first task was to descend to the bottom of the basin, then cross the growing Middle Fork of the Kings and head up the canyon leading to Pinchot Pass (12,130'). It was an easy morning hike, with the gold grasses and smallish trees of the Basin being nicely illuminated by the morning light.

We crossed the river, had a quick climb of about 600' though the woods, and emerged into a beautiful hanging meadow, which was surrounded by pretty alpine lakes. En route we met the father and son team (we had seen a lot of parent-child combos hiking the trail) of Ken and Mike, who were on a pace very similar to ours. We would leapfrog each other on the trail often during the final days of the trip..

The hike from our camp to the pass was only six miles, and, after an enjoyable hike up some gentle switchbacks, we were on top by noon. It was a great spot for lunch, which we enjoyed with Ken and Mike under very still, sunny conditions. It was rare to not have wind at a pass like this, and we were grateful for the opportunity to be able to spend a long time enjoying the scenery.

I hate to use this word again, but the seven-mile hike down the other side was interminable. I generally enjoy downhills, but the many thousands of feet we had descended over the past few days was taking its toll. My feet were sore, and feeling almost bruised, and my knees were complaining again. To make matters worse, the trail down along Woods Creek really wasn't that pretty, and there was a lot of flood and avalanche debris along the lower part of the valley.

Because of our "bankers lunch" on top of the pass, we didn't arrive at our goal, the crossing of Woods Creek, until almost dinnertime. This camp is best known for the nearby bridge that crosses the creek, which is commonly referred to as the "Golden Gate of the Sierras." The bridge itself is an incredibly long suspension bridge, similar in ways to that in the classic "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." It is at least forty feet long, and was built in 1988 after an exasperated Park Service grew tired of replacing its predecessors. After seeing the mangled creekbed in the valley above (see photo), I could appreciate just how serious the flooding in this area could be.

This bridge brings out the kid in everyone, and we both enjoyed a few swings on it on the way across.

The camp at the Woods Creek Crossing is a regular stop on the near-famous Rae's Lake Loop, one of the more popular week-long backpack circuits on the west side of the range. Because of this, the campsite is quite overused, and the local backcountry ranger has found it necessary to post instructional signs about bears, sensitive plants and camping restrictions to keep the natives at bay. We were back in a tourist zone after a long time away, and I was saddened to be back so near to civilization. Both of us also felt a tinge of regret, as we had previously hiked the trail from this point on, meaning that the surprises were over.

Photos: Upper Basin - Morning Light; Upper Woods Creek

Day 13: LeConte Canyon to Upper Basin

There are eight major passes on the Muir Trail - Donahue, Silver, Selden, Muir, Mather, Pinchot, Glen and Forester - and the climb of Whitney and crossing of its 13,620' Trail Crest shoulder effectively makes it nine. Each of these passes is a force to be reckoned with, and therefore requires planning - or else. These high passes are typically very exposed places that can take a lot out of you if you cross them during the heat of the day. Because passes are typically very rocky, the trail quality can range from good to poor, and is always harder to walk on than trails in the flatlands. No pass on the Muir Trail is much lower than 11,000', meaning that they usually call for a lot of elevation gain and will promise much thinner air than that from whence you came. And finally, they can sometimes be situated in entirely the wrong places relative to any strategy one might employ to minimize the effects of all these other factors. Such was the case with the 12,100' Mather Pass.

The ideal way to deal with a high pass like this is to position your pre-pass camp in such a way as to have dealt with some part of the uphill the day before crossing the pass and in such a place as to have a short climb to the pass the next morning before it gets too hot. Where we had camped the day before crossing Mather Pass was completely at odds with these simple rules. We were a punishing 10.5 miles from the summit - every inch uphill - and had to climb over 4,000 vertical feet, including an ascent of the "Golden Staircase." The expression "Golden Staircase" conjures up notions of the foyer of a beautiful palace, with the stairway leading to the boudoir of some fantastic damsel. Not! The Golden Staircase on the JMT was the last section of the trail to be built, in large part due to the extraordinary task of cutting a trail suitable for people and stock animals into a sheer granite cliff. We dreaded this day.

To add insult to injury, the moment we hit the trail, we passed a sign that informed us that the hike to the pass was actually 11.5 miles - another mile longer than the guidebook and the map said. Probably a typo, we grumbled.

The early part of the climb ascends gently though a forest along the banks of noisy Palisades Creek, then begins to get steeper as we emerged into the open hillsides below the Golden Staircase. Then the Staircase was upon us. This stretch of trail is such an engineering marvel that I almost forgot the mortal agony I was soon feeling from my legs. One of the central architectural elements of the Staircase was the 18" high granite step - something we honestly had not trained for. These go on for three miles and 1,800 vertical feet, and by the time I collapsed on a grassy knoll at the edge of Lower Palisades Lake (our lunch spot), I was toast. Those damn steps had kicked my ass, and I was badly in need of a breather.

After I came to, I was able to take in the beauty of Julian's choice of a meal stop. The day was clear and perfectly warm, and the deep blue lake was nestled in the notch of a deep, glacial canyon, with sheer granite walls on both sides. We took a long stop of at least an hour and enjoyed a nice dip in the icy waters of the lake.

The trail then traverses the canyon wall high above the two Palisades Lakes, then starts up a leg-numbing set of switchbacks which are nearly as steep as those on the Staircase. Here, though, the trail quality is much worse, and with the higher elevation having removed much of our oxygen supply, it was slow going.

About halfway up the switchbacks, I came upon the strangest person we would meet on the JMT. A man, dressed in shabby clothes and rain boots was lying on a rock next to the trail. From what I could see, he had just two old canteens (the big tin kind with the blankets on the side) a very small duffel bag, and nothing else. No sleeping bag, no raingear, no food. No nothing. He was at least 30 miles from the nearest trailhead - a three day hike for most people. I exhaled a "G' Afternoon" as I wheezed by, and he merely grunted in return. As I climbed higher, I could see him still lying there, and my head began to spin with the possibilities. My thoughts ran in two directions - either he was dangerous to himself - or dangerous to others. The nights up there were running in the twenties, and he obviously didn't have the wherewithal to keep warm. We were also just two days beyond the storm, meaning that somehow he would have been out in the storm too. I couldn't imagine what on earth he was doing there.

At around 5:00 p.m., I staggered to the top of the pass where Julian waited. Though the view was very nice, there wasn't much left of me, and it pained me to think that we still had at least three miles to go before we could make camp. It further pained me to think that we had to go over Pinchot Pass the next day.

Fortunately, the trail quality down the other side of the pass was good, and after a short descent, we were at the north end of the magnificent Upper Basin. The Basin is a large Bowl at the headwaters of the South Fork of the Kings River. It was after 6:00 by then, and the evening light made for a beautiful setting as we shot down through the Basin in search of a flat spot near water. We hoped to get at least a few miles down the trail into the Basin so as to minimize the next morning's climb.

After about two miles, my body signaled the end of its desire to keep walking, and I teetered over to a somewhat flat spot by a rushing creek. Julian arrived a moment later, and, in the dementia of my utter exhaustion, said that I would just get my sleeping bag out and sleep anywhere. Fortunately, he still had a few brain cells left than day, and found a place to set up the tent. That was a good thing, as the temperature that night went down well into the teens.

Photos: Switchbacks on the Golden Staircase; Lower Palisade Lake; Upper Basin - Afternoon Light

Day 12: Evolution Lake to Palisades Creek

The consequence of the storm the day before was that our well-planned schedule was now completely out of whack. We now had about 97 miles of hiking to do in eight days, and our strategy for climbing the fearsome Mather Pass would now have to be changed. As we didn't know what the weather would bring us, we thought it best to catch up with our itinerary as quickly as possible, recognizing that there would be a price to pay for the longer days.

When we awoke, the sky was clearer, though the clouds from the south still raced overhead. We packed up our damp things as quickly as possible and got on the trail by 7:20 - a record for us. Our goal for the day was to cross 11,955' Muir Pass, then hike all the way to the junction of LeConte Canyon and Palisades Creek - a total distance of sixteen miles and our longest day so far. We reasoned that this would not be that difficult, as it would be downhill from the other side of the pass, and we would be in position for an assault on Mather Pass the following day.

Though we still had six miles to go before the pass, the elevation gain was only about 1,000', and we enjoyed a gradual hike to the summit through the glacial beauty of Evolution Basin. There had been something of a logjam created on both sides of the pass because of the storm, and there were a lot of people hiking in both directions in the early part of the day.

As we walked along the shore of Sapphire Lake en route to the pass, we met a couple who had been coming up from the other side the previous afternoon and therefore had not been warned about the coming storm. They were actually on the pass when the force of the storm hit and described their utter terror of watching the lightning hit the ground all around them. Another group had hunkered down for the night in the very porous Muir Hut, a commemorative stone structure at the pass. Imagine passing a night in a medieval prison cell and you'll get a sense of what their night was like.

We crossed the pass at 10:00 - a very good start - then headed down the other side past Helen Lake into a basin that forms the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Kings River. The descent from the pass was a real treat. We were able to literally watch the development of a river - from its first trickle high up in the valley to the force it would reach by the end of our day. Also, because of the storm, every streambed in the valley before us was running at full force, with lots of waterfalls and the noise of rushing water all around us.

Many people we'd met had described this stretch of the Trail as their favorite, and I have to agree. The place has a wild, rugged feeling to it, with tall, reaching mountains on all sides and three major meadow systems. After getting a few miles beyond the pass, the trail quality became quite good, and we were able to really enjoy the afternoon's hike, albeit a long one. Julian's feet were beginning to improve somewhat, so he was not as bothered by the descent.

After sixteen miles, my goose was cooked, and I grabbed a flat spot in a meadow just before the trail junction leading up to Mather Pass. Most people in this area camp in the dark grove of trees at the junction proper, but I enjoyed the open feel of the canyon and didn't want to lose the view.

As we set about making camp, Rob, the LeConte backcountry ranger, came along. I always enjoy talking with the rangers in Kings Sequoia, as most of them have been doing their job each year for a very long time, and their knowledge of the mountains and range of stories is encyclopedic. Rob grew up in Berkeley, near my hometown, so we knew a few people in common and spent the next half hour catching up on things.

The sky had cleared by the time the sun went down, and the evening light was beautiful.

Photos: Wanda Lake and Lake McDermand from Muir Pass; Kent at Muir Hut

Day 11: Evolution Valley to Evolution Basin

Somewhere around Day 5 of the trip, I had begun to get a little smug about the weather. At that point, we'd had five days of near-perfect conditions: warm, clear days and cold, clear nights. Then, at Rosemarie Meadow, we'd had the distraction of the hail and a thunderstorm, and the day before, the rain. But the weather on Day 10 took on a new role, and was to alter the course of our trip for the following week.

Our goal for the day was to hike about ten miles over Muir Pass and midway down LeConte Canyon. We would then hike another ten the following day to position ourselves to hike over the brutal Mather Pass - probably the hardest such crossing on the Trail.

After leaving McClure Meadow, the trail continues up Evolution Valley through Colby Meadow, the last of the three principal meadows in the Valley, and then climbs up into the high, alpine, Evolution Basin. As we were making our way up the wooded switchbacks leading up into the Basin, a ranger stopped Julian on the trail and expressed a strong recommendation that we not go over the pass that day. He explained that the remnants of a hurricane in Texas were on course to collide with a Pacific front (directly above our position) and that the result would be a Category 5 (more categories) thunder and lighting storm early that afternoon. He suggested we go no higher than the treeline at 10,000 feet.

Damn. With our layover day, we had 100 miles to go in nine days of hiking, and there were five major passes and the climb of Whitney before us. This was a major setback. We grudgingly walked up the trail to the beautiful, yet barren, Evolution Lake and found a rare flat spot on the sparse mountainside for the tent. Our total for the day was a whopping three miles. There were a lot of people on the trail that day, and soon the area was full of hikers foraging for campsites to wait out the storm.

It was moments like this that made me really wish we had Julian's swanky VE-25 tent. I didn't want us to carry it, necessarily, I just wanted it to be there.

As the storm was still apparently some ways off, we set about making the circus tent as bombproof as possible. We sealed the bottom edges of the tent all around with rocks, both to keep the wind from blowing under the edge of the tent and to prevent rain from running inside. A six inch deep moat was dug into the ground around the uphill sides of the tent, a mechanism we hoped would channel any water running down the hill away from us. Finally, we got all of our gear into the tent, with our groundsheets and sleeping pads placed on dry ground. And then we waited.

It was actually a pretty nice day, so we spent the next few hours enjoying the stark beauty of Evolution Basin and talking with others who were camped around us. Because it was so nice, we wondered if, in fact, there was a storm coming at all or if we should have just gone for it and tried to get over the pass to safety. The distance between us and the pass was still about six miles, and because we didn't have any sense of the terrain (other than what we could glean from the map), we decided to stay put.

Around noon, the scattered clouds in the sky gave way to an interesting phenomenon. A swath of very-fast-moving, high clouds began racing across the sky from the southeast - something I had never seen before, as most Sierra weather comes from the west or northwest. This band of clouds, which stretched from horizon to horizon, would continue unabated for the next twenty-four hours.

Shortly after 1:00, rain began, and after it picked up a little, we went inside the tent. As the wind wasn't so bad, we left the door open to watch things develop. Then, with amazing speed, the sky got darker, the rain increased, thunder began marching toward us from the distance, and the wind began whipping the tent - thus prompting us to close the door.

Within minutes, the rain turned to large, pounding hail, and the wind began to bat the tent around mercilessly. The thunder came closer and closer and finally parked itself, it seemed, directly above our tent, and we then were given the show of all shows. The thunder and lightning were nearly constant, and our little tent was no match for the hail, sleet, rain and wind that came from the sky.

Our preparation had paid off though - some water ran in under the edges of the tent, and the force of the storm brought little streams of water through the holes in the roof, but all in all we stayed fairly dry. The volume of the tent was reduced, though, both because of the rocks weighing down the edges, and because the hail was now causing the roof to sag quite a bit. There was not a lot of room inside.

Now, I absolutely love weather, and my attitude toward thunderstorms and lightning is more like that of someone attending a concert than one of fright. But this storm had me scared. I had never experienced lightning strikes that were so close, nor thunder that was so loud, and after a few minutes of this I was cringing outright at each new explosion. Before we set up camp, I had performed a simple, "Am I going to get killed by lightning?" test on our campsite by looking at the trees around us. Usually, if the area gets a lot of groundstrikes, there will be a few charred trees. There weren't any here, and so in my mind, I really wasn't that worried, but the endless noise, light and rattling of the tent was unsettling. After about an hour of the most intense part of the storm, the thunder and lightning moved away to the north, and we were left with a gentle rainshower which ended shortly thereafter.

Again, we were able to get out and move around that afternoon, as the detritus of the hailstorm around our tent melted off. Several people got out and headed for the summit, but because our gear was pretty wet and the sky still threatening, we decided to stay put.

The storm returned again that night, but with less force, making for a good show. Because the cold at the higher altitudes (now in the mid-twenties each night) was causing us to spend about ten hours a night in our sleeping bags, I was grateful for something to do. I lay awake in the warmth of bag for several hours and enjoyed nature at work.

Photos: Evolution Lake, Preparing for the Big One

Day 10: Layover Day at Evolution Valley

To say that we badly needed a layover day would have been an understatement. We had walked over 100 miles in nine days, dutifully waking up in the pre-dawn cold, packing our camp and getting on the trail without delay each morning. It was so nice to sleep in and not have to pack up the damn camp. Three cheers for sloth.

To celebrate the occasion, we had saved a special breakfast of stewed fruit, coconut milk and Thai sticky rice (recognizing that our tenth breakfast of "that shit" would not have been special). It was warm and sweet and different . . . and a fitting tribute to that day and that beautiful place.

We did have one chore before us that day - laundry. Remembering our difficulty drying our things at Deer(fly) Creek, we washed everything just after breakfast and hung them out to dry on a clothesline in the warm sun. Unfortunately, though, the sun was gone within 45 minutes and replaced by a slow, steady rain. We and our clothes beat a retreat to the tent, whereupon the inside on the tent took on the look of a rummage sale. Though the rain stopped a short while later, the sun never returned that day, leaving us with everything we had to wear (save the long underwear we had not washed) being soaked.

We had hoped for a day of swimming and languishing by the river, but with the cold, damp day it was not to be. I used the occasion to make some serious progress on Leon Uris' excellent "Trinity," which I had brought along after a search for very long book that would last me through the majority of the trip. I had also sent myself the sequel, "Redemption," in one of the food shipments.

McClure Meadow is fairly low (9,500') by Kings Canyon standards, and we were able to have a fire, which we got going around dinner time (Thai curry rice noodles with shitake mushrooms - it was "Thai Day" in the kitchen). Since we had foolishly not remembered the difficulty in drying our Smartwool socks, and had washed all of them, we each set to work drying a pair of socks before the fire for the morning. Now, it is a strange law of camping that if you try to dry socks around a campfire for too long (Smartwools take a long time), at least one sock will fall into the fire or suffer burning as a result of inattention. We scored highly in this regard, burning a total of three of the four socks being dried. Julian later added to this point total by accidentally singeing my t-shirt, giving it kind of a macho brand near one of the shoulders.

It had been slowly clearing as darkness came on, and we were grateful, as that was to be the night of the full moon. We enjoyed watching the alpenglow on The Hermit as the sun set, and then waited, as the valley plunged into near total darkness, for the moon to come. It was late, maybe 8:00, when it finally made its appearance, peeping over a crack between Mts. Lamark and Mendel. I saw it first through the trees, and sprinted for the meadow as I shouted for Julian to grab the video camera.

We will never forget the moments that followed, and they unquestionably went down as the signature event of the trip. The moon came up quickly, and was accompanied in the sky by some light, wispy clouds near the horizon. As the full moon cleared the ridge, it cast a silky glow over the grasses in the meadow, and illuminated the giant slabs of reflective granite on the peaks around us. The Christmas tree-like fir and hemlocks leading down into the meadow were silhouetted from behind, and the meandering creek reflected the moon as it crept higher into the sky. The air was still, and it was as close to a perfect moment as any I can recall anywhere. It was an beautiful and fitting end to our day off.

Photo: McClure Meadow in Afternoon

Day 9: Muir Trail Ranch to Evolution Valley

At the lower elevation, it was a warm night, and we slept soundly. After another meal of "that shit", we quickly broke camp and headed back across the river, as this was to be a busy day.

Our first order of business was to head over to the nearby Muir Trail Ranch and pick up our food shipment. The Ranch offers a wonderful service whereby, for a fee of $45 (steep but worth it), they'll receive a package at the post office at Florence Lake and then bring it into their backcountry ranch. Without this service, the post office would be five miles and a ferry ride away. The Ranch requests that all food shipments be packaged in five-gallon buckets (for mouse protection) and this, therefore, imposed an upper limit on the amount of food we were able to send ourselves. It was this limitation, in fact, that caused us to have to send a package to Red's Meadow, as we needed to pick up food for ten days. That's a lot of food, and though I repacked it over and over, I just couldn't fit it all into the bucket.

When we got to the Muir Trail Ranch, we checked in with the caretaker Russ and picked up one of Julian's high-capacity video batteries we'd left off there the night before for charging (the Ranch has a small hydroelectric generator running off the river). Russ was an interesting character - the amicable sort you'd expect to find at a backcountry ranch - and he told us some stories about his experiences hiking the JMT, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail, all in their entirety. That's a total of some 5,000 miles of trail, and it made our measly little 200 miler seem insignificant by comparison.

Since it had been well over a month since I'd packed the bucket, we spread all the food out on a picnic table at the Ranch and conducted a complete inventory. We did this in part to figure out exactly what was there in relation to what we were still carrying, but we also made a decision to jettison all extra food beyond what was needed for the allotted days remaining. We had been carrying an extra set of meals for emergencies, but we had both a weight issue and a bear storage issue with all the new food, and we finally decided not to carry more than what we needed. By paring down the food, we assured ourselves of only having to counter-balance food for two days at Evolution Valley, and after that everything would fit into our bear canisters.

With the addition of about fifteen pounds of food in each of our packs, we trudged up the dusty trail leading up the canyon toward the mouth of Goddard Canyon, which would lead us to Evolution Valley. It was nearly 10:00 by then, and the day was starting to warm up.

After about three miles of flat hiking, we came to a point in the trail both Julian and I had been anticipating the entire trip - the northern entrance to Kings Canyon National Park. This falls at the confluence of Goddard Canyon and Piute Creek, which drains out of Humphrey Basin, where we had hiked two years before. As beautiful as Yosemite and the northern reaches of the trail were, everything in the Sequoia/Kings region of the south Sierra is somehow bigger, more dramatic and even more thrilling to live in. In many ways, we'd paid our dues and the real trip could now begin.

As if an omen, Julian found a size 11 left men's running shoe within five feet of entering the park. His left foot had been giving him the most trouble, and the thing he needed most of all was a shoe that would give his poor toes some breathing room. This shoe fit perfectly, and we decided to bring it along.

The walk up Goddard Canyon was breathtaking, gorgeous, spectacular or astounding - take your pick. The trail winds along the edge of the riverbank up a twisting canyon that is punctuated by stark rock formations and old trees - an easy and picturesque hike.

After three miles, we stopped for lunch at a bridge just below the switchbacks heading up to Evolution Valley, then headed up the short but steep 1,000' climb. En route, we met Paul and Milly - both from Connecticut - who graciously agreed to call Julian's partner Kate (who would then call my wife Ginie) with a status report. We had both hoped somehow that there would be a payphone at the Muir Trail Ranch - a foolish notion brought on by too much time in the creature comforts of urban America.

I was eighteen when I first heard about Evolution Valley. It was the first summer after starting college, and I was working as a camp counselor at nearby Huntington Lake. During a day hike in the Kaiser Wilderness Area, a fellow counselor had taken me up onto a ridge, pointed to the east and told me of a place of extraordinary beauty called Evolution Valley. That remark has stuck with me ever since, and I had always harbored a desire to go there. Because of this, I walked into the Valley with extremely high expectations.

Our hike that day was only about ten miles, but between the weight of the new food, my back problems and Julian's swollen toes, we were very tired by the time we got to our camp in McClure Meadow. Paul and Milly had told us about a very special campsite at the entrance to the meadow, and we were happy to find it vacant when we arrived.

The camp was located in a grove of trees at the west end of the meadow. By stepping a few feet out into the meadow from our camp, a truly stunning scene was revealed before us. The meadow itself was made up of tall, yellow-green grasses, and down the middle flowed a nearly flat creek, which meandered its way from a point far off in the distance. The meadow was ringed by a set of high, jagged peaks which are all named after important figures in the science of evolution - Goethe, Darwin, Lemark and Mendel, and then punctuated by a single high, conical mountain in the foreground, which is appropriately named "The Hermit." To complete the picture, tall, perfect conifers sweep down the mountainsides on both sides of the meadow. The beauty was amazing, and we would find as we stayed there through the next day that the feeling of the meadow changed with the weather, the time of day and the light. Evolution Valley was everything I had been hoping it would be for the past 22 years.

As a fitting finale to our special first day in the Kings Canyon park, we had a clear sky that night, and were reminded that we were to have the privilege the following night of watching a full moon rise over the valley.

Photo: Evolution Creek

Day 8: Rosemarie Meadow to Muir Trail Ranch

We awoke the next morning under cold (around 35'), but nearly clear, skies and set to work drying our things. The tent had been splattered with mud, our space blankets (tarps) were muddy on one side, and most everything else was at the least damp, if not soaking wet. We tossed the muddy things into the creek briefly to clean them off, then spread everything else out to dry. It was after 9:00 before we got on the trail.

Our destination was the Muir Trail Ranch, where we would pick up the food that would carry us through the end of the trip. Our pace of the past few days was actually going to get us to the ranch a day early, and we planned to use this extra time to take a badly-needed layover day at Evolution Valley several days later.

To that point, my own health problems were minor: I had experienced some back and shoulder pain early in the trip, primarily from having all the food in my pack, and had applied tape and moleskin to several places on my feet as a preventative measure when I felt hot spots flaring up. But that morning, I was brought to my knees by a strange back spasm. I did nothing more strenuous than bend over to pick up a cup of tea, but I guess it was the wrong thing to do. It took a heavy dose of Ibuprofen and a half hour of yoga before I was able to put my pack on. The saving grace was that, once I had the pack on, it seemed to serve as a brace, and I was able to walk without much pain.

As we started out hiking, Julian noticed that our suspected fire from the night before was indeed smoldering and sending off a large plume of smoke. There were no other trees nearby, so there was no real risk of it igniting anything else.

As we emerged from the treeline, we passed along the shore of the stunning, though very windy, Marie Lake. It was a beautiful sight, with the low morning light, puffy clouds, blue of the lake water and the stark, alpine beauty of the surrounding granite coming together to create a near perfect mountain experience. We looked back often as we climbed the short set of switchbacks leading up to 10,900' Selden Pass.

The views from the pass were sensational, with Marie Lake to the north and a narrow canyon leading down to Heart Lake to the south. However, the wind we'd felt at Marie Lake was being funneled through the pass with an intensity I've never experienced before. It wasn't so much the speed of the wind, but it had a buffeting quality that made my ears hurt, and I headed off down the trail as soon as possible, while Julian stayed behind to shoot some video.

As I passed Marie Lake and headed down between the beautiful Sallie Keyes Lakes, I met two interesting sets of people on the trail. The first was two guys who, when asked about their trip, described a long itinerary that was partially on trails and partially not, crossing many remote passes and comprising a trip that traveled through the best the southern Sierra has to offer. We met a variety of people hiking this style of trip, and I was impressed with the potential, as there is so much to see that is not covered by the trail system.

The other group consisted of a group of five guys who looked more like a bowling team than backpackers who by then would have been 15-20 miles from a trailhead. They were heading up into the windy Selden Pass, but they wore khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirts and carried no water, wind protection or food. I later heard that they had scattered the ashes of a friend at the pass. A few minutes later, I walked by their camp and saw that each of them had carried a regulation lawn chair into the backcountry. We saw an awful lot of lawn chairs strapped to backpacks on the trip, and though I can appreciate the creature comforts of the things, I think they should be banned outright. Come on, support your local fallen tree ...

A short while later, after crossing Sanger Creek, we encountered a pack train of llamas, with two guides supporting two clients. Since llamas are still something of a novelty in the mountains, we stopped to chat. The lead guide regaled us with stories of the fabulous cuisine they were feeding their customers: "Fa-hee-tahs tonight! And what did we have for breakfast this morning?" No answer. "French toast, with fresh strawberry sauce and hazelnut coffee." Gag. Give me a break. As we trudged off down the trail secretly craving some fajitas and French toast, the second client came along. Probably on the advice of her able guides, she was wearing a poncho (it was 80' and clear) and complaining about the uphill climb (hint: take the poncho off). The second guide then arrived, and he had good reason to complain. One of the llamas had gone on strike and refused to carry its pack anymore. The guide was therefore toting two heavy panniers totally over a hundred pounds of fajitas, French toast and the like, and grumbling all the while. We skipped lightly down the trail with our forty pound packs of dehydrated food.

After yet another torturous downhill for Julian, we arrived at the Muir Trail Ranch and nearby Blayney Meadows hot springs. To get to our camp and the nearby spring requires a ford of the very wide South Fork of the San Joaquin River. The river runs quite fast at that point, and a rope is provided to help with the crossing.

By the time we got to camp, my back was again in knots, and our first order of business was therefore to seek out the hot spring. We could not have been more disappointed. The "spring" was no more than a large, warm mud puddle in the middle of a meadow, with a water temperature of no better than 85 or 90 degrees. I had read somewhere on the 'Net that this is not a true spring, but a large, warm mud puddle with some thermal vents underneath it which heat the water. We went down the trail beyond the spring, and found a large, relatively warm swimming hole, and spent a few minutes enjoying a swim. All of the lakes and rivers we went by on the trip were quite cold, so this was a welcome relief. I then pleaded injury and headed off to the "spring" while Julian graciously set up camp.

There is, I found out later, a much nicer spring very near to the mud puddle. Sadly, though, I am sworn to secrecy as to its location. Even more sadly, I was not able to try it out.

Photo: Marie Lake

Day 7: Mono Creek to Rosemarie Meadow

It was warm last night at the lower elevation (7,800'), and we had a good nights sleep. One of the benefits of our navigational faux pas was that we were much closer to a long (the book said "interminable") set of switchbacks leading up the north side of bear ridge - a climb of 2,200 feet over five miles. We liked getting an early start on these things, and were on the trail by 7:45.

Very shortly, we passed the intersection with the trail to Lake Edison, which is crossed from this point on a ferry that comes twice a day. At the other end of the ferry is the well-known Vermilion Valley Resort, which is famous for its pampering of through hikers on the trail. Upon walking into the resort, one is immediately presented with a free beer, and a complimentary tent cabin, and in the evening, a group bonfire is held for those passing through. The resort will also hold resupply packages sent to them by mail. Those we met on the trail who had taken advantage of this fine hospitality were quite grateful for the hospitality, but were also smarting a bit from what they had spent there. We met one group of two which had somehow parted with $300 (the store there sells camping food), though they had just ten days to go on their trip.

As we started up the heavily-wooded slope, we passed a sign saying that this stretch of trail was maintained each year by Outward Bound (nice work, folks). Interminable as the switchbacks may have been, this was a beautiful section of the trail. At the lower elevations, we passed through thickets of Aspen and Cottonwood, and the ground was covered with ferns, wildflowers and long grasses. Being on the north slope with so much tree cover, the ground was also quite moist, and there were a lot of mosquitoes.

We climbed quickly though, on fresh legs, and as we climbed, the forest gave way to a variety of fir and pine trees, along with a stand of lodgepole pine near the crest. These were old, very tall trees, and with the well-maintained trail, made for a nice morning.

Confident that we had finally topped out on the climb, we paused for a breather in a sandy meadow at the top, then headed down the steep, dry south side of the ridge into Bear Creek Canyon. The views on the way down were sensational, as the big peaks of Sequoia/Kings Canyon were now coming into view.

This decline was sheet torture for Julian, as the problem with his little toes was continuing to compound itself. After passing a pompous old fart out for a wilderness experience on a rented horse (accompanied by his entourage of two guides and five pack animals), we stooped for lunch as soon as possible, picking some large, flat rocks on the edge of rollicking Bear Creek. We enjoyed a fine, though repetitive meal, and spent well over an hour soaking in the creek and catching some sun.

By the end of lunch, it was starting to seriously look like rain, so we put on our pack covers before hitting the trail. Sure enough, within ten minutes, it started to sprinkle, and by the time we had gotten a mile up the trail, the sprinkle had given way to a steady downpour of pea-sized hailstones. I was only wearing a t-shirt and nylon shorts, so these actually hurt quite a bit. I found a dry spot in the crook of a fallen tree in which to seek shelter, and the hail stopped about ten minutes later.

Our goal for the day was Upper Bear Meadow, but there weren't any worthwhile campsites there, so we kept going. Julian was limping pretty severely at that point, so we felt it important to find something as soon as possible. After about a mile, we entered the very nice Rosemary Meadow. The first campsite we saw was right on the trail, but the sky was clouding over again, and, rather than be picky, we hurriedly put the tent up.

This was the first time on the trip that I wished I had brought a different tent. The ground was still quite wet from the earlier downpour, and we had no choice put to set up the (floorless) tent on a wet patch of ground. The space blankets and Thermarest pads we slept on helped a little, and we had things set up just when the sky opened up again. I stayed out a little longer to get a pot of tea water brewing and got a good soaking before getting back in the tent.

Mother Nature then treated us to a wonderful show of her might. Within minutes, a barrage of now marble-sized hail was buffeting the tent, and the sky virtually exploded with thunder, lightning and wind. We were pretty dry (though the tent was shipping a lot of water through holes in the roof and under the edges), so we sat back with some tea and enjoyed the show. The noise from the thunder and the wind was so loud, we had to shout to be heard, and we had a good time trying to record the event for posterity on Julian's digital video camera.

After an hour or so, the storm abated, and we were able to get outside for a few hours to make dinner and clean up. I had left my covered pack under a tree during the deluge, but the cover had blown off and the lower half and the contents were very wet. The tent, because of the spattering from the wind, was covered with mud, and everything inside was, at the least, damp. The ground was covered with a layer of glop two inches thick, the residue from the hail and rain that followed. We prayed that the next day would be sunny, as living for several days with all of our possessions being wet, muddy or gloppy was not a prospect we looked forward to.

After dinner, we were in our bags ready to sleep by 7:30, and shortly thereafter the storm returned for a grand finale, again with a lot of thunder, lightning and wind.

At around 3:30 a.m., I got up, as I did several times each night, to deal with the consequences of drinking a gallon or so of water each day. The sky had cleared, and the stars were spectacular! On the ridge to the east, I saw a strange, steady orange light, which was coming from the ridgeline at the end of the canyon. I wasn't wearing my glasses, and it looked to me like a beacon of some kind. I got my glasses, and in doing so woke up Julian, who also came out to look at this phenomenon. Together we concluded that it must be a fire, touched off by the lightning earlier in the night.

Day 6: Virginia Lake to Mono Creek

Wow - a cold night last night. Temperatures were in the mid-twenties when we awoke, and there was ice and frost on everything. When this happens, our wonderful circus tent absorbs the water rather than sheds it, so Julian had a little four-pound bonus in his pack today.

Last night, to celebrate our last night of travel together, Matt caught three trout, and, together with some Indian vegetables and tabouli we chipped in, we had a nice meal under the stars. We were just two days out of Red's Meadow, but that trout was incredible.

We managed an early start - on the trail by 8:00 - and began our day by hiking over the low saddle at the southwest end of Virginia Lake. This gave way to sweeping views of Cascade Valley below, and we headed down a gentle slope to Tully Hole. From Tully Hole, we followed Fish Creek for several miles along a nice, wooded trail with lots of wildflowers. Fish Creek had a lot of water for this time of year, and there were numerous waterfalls. We left the creek at a substantial bridge and headed south up the long canyon leading up to Silver Pass.

The first part of the trail to the pass leads through some dark woods - the guidebook describes these as "dank." Dank or not, I was happy to have the shade. Above the woods, we skirted several nice lakes before coming to the pass - a climb of 1,800 vertical feet from the creek crossing below. At the pass, we spread out the tent to dry and enjoyed a final meal with Matt and Rich before they ran off down the trail (literally) to catch the ferry across Florence Lake to end their trip. We exacted promises from them to hoist a few cold ones and some pizza on our behalf.

The Marlon Perkins Wildlife Moment today came when a marten darted across the trail in front of us on the way up to the pass - a rare sight.

After lunch, with Julian's lighter pack (having dried the tent at the pass) we headed down the long, dusty decline to Mono Creek below, and our camp at Pocket Meadow. Today's downhill, between the descent into Tully Hole and this one, was well over 3,000 feet, and Julian's feet did not hesitate to express their displeasure. To further complicate matters, I was out in front when we reached the bottom of the particularly gory set of switchbacks before the bottom, and was responsible for pinpointing the location of the meadow where we were to camp. With my cityboy ways, I merrily marched down the trail, waiting to walk into the meadow or for some sign that I had arrived. There was no sign, and I foolishly plunged ahead a full three miles beyond the actual meadow (which was on the other side of the creek) before I discovered the error of my ways. Julian had been in pretty bad shape when I left him last, and I felt terrible at having caused him to walk further than we intended. My shame was only slightly reduced when the next four people down the trail said that they too had missed any sign of the meadow.

Julian eventually came along, and he too had missed any sign of the meadow. We were now in what I call a "Tourist Zone" - areas in the mountains that are so close to trailheads as to be easily accessible to people with lawn chairs, ice chests and minimal backcountry ethics. These areas are typically quite overused and I avoid them like the plague.

The next campsite on the map was still another two miles down the trail, and we made the decision to stay anywhere we could find a flat spot to lay our tent, as he had to get off his feet soon or we'd have to amputate. A short while later, we followed the hint of a trail off toward a creek and actually emerged into a very nice clearing in a large grove of Red Cedar. We were relieved, and, while Julian raced off to the creek to soak his knee and feet, I set up camp to atone for my sins.

Another bear story. Also camped in the grove were two guys making a three-day loop through the area (tourists). As they set up their camp, we were amused to see them set up a form of bear protection I had not seen since I was a child - they tossed a rope over a branch about ten feet off the ground, and tied the other end to a tree. This was in contrast to the counter-balancing technique that had become standard practice, but that had recently been declared by those in the know to be ineffective, thus promoting the widespread use of bear canisters. With six days on the JMT under my belt, I proclaimed myself Joe Backpacker and dutifully went over to politely suggest why they were likely to lose their food that night. The gentlemen indignantly explained that I wasn't seeing the whole picture. After tying the food up that way, they then placed a pot filled with rocks on top of it. The theory was: If a bear came along, would hear the noise of the pot and the rocks, wake up, and bombard the bear with other rocks, thus scarring it away. Sure, I muttered, as I walked away, that'll work . . . snicker snicker.

OK, so their damn food was still there in the morning. We were fast learning that people take their bear storage very personally, and are generally quite attached to whatever method they've been using. We, all the while though, were sleeping soundly (not lying awake with a handful of rocks).

Day 5: Deer Creek to Virginia Lake

Rich and Matt, aside from being generally pretty nice guys to travel with, had a bottomless stash of all the food groups we had foolishly forgotten, namely salt and grease. This morning, they generously shared their hash browns with us, and they were exquisite. Just one day after eating my fill of the same at Red's Meadow, here I was, wolfing those things down like a parched man finding an oasis in the desert. Old habits die hard.

Stepping over the carnage of several thousand recently-deceased bugs in our wet Smartwool socks, we were on the trail by 9:00. We had filled up on water because of the long dry spell ahead.

Our hike began on an easy grade, continuing along the west flank of a wooded ridge before crossing a saddle to the upper edge of Cascade Valley - a nice view. After a stop for water and minor foot surgery at Duck Creek, we continued across a low ridge to the shore of pretty Purple Lake, where we had lunch in a meadow covered with wildflowers.

There were interesting people on the trail that day, starting with the self-proclaimed "Grandmothers Running Club," four fortiesh-year-old women out for a little eighteen-mile jog from the trailhead below Duck Pass to Mammoth, and ending with a gentleman who huffed by us en route to a seven day sprint of the entire JMT. Though we are certainly big fans of machismo, we wondered why one would do a thing like that. We also wondered just how one could do a thing like that.

The entire JMT passes through country with lots of big rock formations, but those in the pass between Purple Lake and Lake Virginia were particularly amazing, and we took a lot of pictures and video. In one section, a massive slab of well over a hundred feet tall had peeled off the side of the mountain, crashing into the pile of rubble below. One of my pictures shows Julian standing next to an unusual triangular-shaped rock of 15 feet on a side that looks more like a giant wedge of bleu cheese than a creation of nature. Its interesting to walk through sections of trail with so much to see - I find myself walking backwards, turning in circles and stopping over and over to take it all in.

Downhill from the pass, we entered the stunning hanging bowl that contains Virginia Lake. The trail comes in at the east end of the lake, and the picture before us was truly breathtaking. The lake sits in a gentle valley, with a peak rising above it in the middle of the far end, opposite our vantage point. On either side of the peak, the ridge falls away, leaving the view open to ranges of snow capped peaks far in the distance. White fluffy clouds and a deep blue sky completed the picture, which was as beautiful as any we would see on the trip.

Rich and Matt had gone ahead and secured a nice camp on the south side of the lake so they could start fishing. They left us a cryptic note in the sand and a flag made of Matt's hideous yellow pants (on sale in the bargain bin for $5) to help us find the way.

Day 4: Red's Meadow to Deer(fly) Creek

The local bears provoked some clattering and yelling at the other campsites, but with no other distractions and the warmer weather at the lower elevation, we slept soundly. Once again, the allure of hot meals made by someone else was impossible to resist, and we headed for the store for some omelets and greasy hash browns. As a result, we were on the trail very late - a record thusfar at 9:15. For the next couple of days, we'll be traveling with Matt and Richard.

Having made up some miles the day before with our shameful use of the shuttle, we planned a short day of about six miles to Deer Creek. The low miles were not entirely due to sloth on our part, it was more that the next water beyond Deer Creek was nearly six miles beyond, and we were fast learning not to tempt fate with the array of blisters, cuts and swelling living in Julian's boots.

Leaving Red's Meadow, we traversed a long ridge to the east of the Middle Fork of San Joaquin River, which was featureless save for the remains of 1992's Rainbow Fire. It was an easy ascent, and we shortly crossed a saddle near the beautiful Red Cones, nearly perfect conical peaks of red lava that rise abruptly out of the surrounding forest cover. We were also, at that point, in an area that historically has had a lot of volcanic activity (nearby Mammoth Mountain is a dormant volcano), so the trail underfoot was primarily crushed pumice and lava.

After crossing picturesque Crater Meadow, we enjoyed a relatively flat hike to our goal, Deer Creek. The campsites at Deer Creek were nothing to write home about, though we did find an area on a slight rise some distance from the trail. It was not yet noon, and we were grateful for the opportunity to relax a little, do some laundry and bag a few hundred deerflys and mosquitoes.

After making camp, it took a matter of minutes for the place to be renamed "Deerfly Creek." The number of flying insects there was astounding! There was, however a silver lining: These critters were at the back of the line when they were passing out directions on how to bite a human, and, like lemmings, they dutifully lined up on top of our knees and on the backs of our hands to be picked off, sometimes in groups of five or more. These were in contrast to the well-trained "stealth mosquitoes" where I come from, who will pepper the back of ones neck and legs with bites without nary a knock on the door.

While doing laundry, we learned that perfect weather is necessary to dry "Smartwool" socks. And a hint - if the weather is not perfect, do not wash all of your Smartwool socks, like we did.

We enjoyed a rare fire that night - rare because at most of the elevations where we would camp, fires were prohibited. Still no bears.

Day 3: Thousand Island Lake to Red's Meadow

We awoke under slightly overcast skies, and, using the guidebook, sketched out a thirteen-mile day that would take us to the Red's Meadow Resort near Mammoth Mountain and the Devil's Postpile National Monument. Red's is a public campground, with the attendant necessities of beer, showers, phones and the like. I should note that the planning of a thirteen mile day was somewhat at odds with our revised itinerary of ten miles a day, and resulted from our newfound confidence in Julian's knee.

After walking down along the long north side of Thousand Island Lake to reach the JMT, we began the day on a beautiful stretch of trail that wound in and out of some narrow canyons, passing pretty little Ruby Lake and then Garnet Lake. Garnet resembles Thousand Island Lake in that it too is dotted with small islands, and both lakes are still overwhelmed by Ritter 'n Banner to the west.

On the descent to Garnet Lake, we met two hikers who shared with us their experience with a bear the night before. It seemed that they were carrying a bear canister, but had too much food to fit inside. Given the lack of a suitable tree at their campsite from which to counterbalance their food (the previously-favored method of bear protection), they had put the food in a stuff bag, then hung the bag over the top of a small cliff near their campsite. This trick does not work on your average experienced bear; their intruder had simply gone up on the rock, pulled their rope up and then ripped open the food bag and devoured its contents. The people we met were awake all the while contemplating a breakfast of foraged berries and pine nuts (remember, those of us with bear canisters were sleeping soundly while this was happening).

To support the premise that the new age bears of the Sierras are able to defeat any storage system except a bear canister, we learned further on down the trail that every one of the ten or so groups around Garnet Lake that was not using a bear canister had had their food taken by the same bear or bears. The lone exception was a pair of hikers who had been abruptly relocated by a ranger as darkness fell for camping too close to the lake. They couldn't see to hand their food, so they simply kept it in their tent. Don't try this at home, folks.

After Garnet Lake, we climbed a gentle saddle, then began a long, interminable set of dusty switchbacks down into the canyon to the south. Descents like this were the worst thing for Julian's now mangled toes, and at the base of the downhill, we stopped by Shadow Creek to retape the blisters, soak the knee and contemplate our future.

On the way down, I had conceded that there was no way I could politely stay behind Julian while he painfully picked his way down the descents, and we at that point entered a pattern of hiking that had become common on all of our previous trips: I hiked much faster on the downhills, and he hiked much faster on the uphills - that was just the way it was. We'd wait for each other as needed, and do our talking on the flats.

Up to this point, we had covered about five miles, with an estimated eight miles to go over what the guidebook described as being a fairly uneventful part of the trail before reaching Red's Meadow. While Julian administered first aid to his feet, I pulled out the map, and to my horror discovered that our hike for the day was to be at least three miles longer than we had previously estimated. The problem lay in the guidebook author's description of the Devil's Postpile area. Because of some rerouting of the trail and the intense amount of use around the Monument, he wrote two separate descriptions of travel through this area (one to visit the Monument and the other to bypass it). In this section of the book, it was difficult to follow the mileage, and either we (or he) had erred in our calculation of our day's journey. The map, with its mileage indicators, had instantly revealed the problem.

We were faced with a dilemma. Do we try to hike the full sixteen miles? Do we hike less than sixteen and camp on the near side of Red's Meadow? Is there a Plan C? Hiking the full sixteen was out of the question, as the little toes were suffering badly at this point, and to plan to go this distance would have been torture for Julian. Going less than sixteen would throw us off a bit, as we were really looking forward to the hot spring and cold beer at Red's. But it seemed that we heard someone up the trail mention a shuttle bus . . .

To save shoe leather and give Julian a bit of a break from the boots, we elected to hike out Shadow Creek about five miles to Agnew Meadows, then catch the local courtesy shuttle over to Red's Meadow. We calculated that we should be able to get their in time for a hot meal and some cold brewskis before the store closed.

After a beautiful hike down along the tumbling cascades of Shadow Creek, we reached the roadhead, where we hopped a bus bound for Red's Meadow. Bear in mind as you read this that its hard for me to be honest about this; you know, two burly mountain men taking a bus instead of toughing it out. But, this confession is part of our overall policy of full disclosure, so here it is . . .

Upon getting to Red's Meadow and landing a spot in the backpackers campsite (the same as all the other campsites, except that four groups sleep in it instead of one), I was given the devastating news that the hot spring was closed for the summer. I guess this is something they do each year, for some strange bureaucratic reason, but it was bad news for us. The salvation was that the water from the springs is piped into some strange, prison celllike shower stalls.

We acquired some tall cold ones at the store, called our loved ones and enjoyed a hot meal of grilled sandwiches in the campy restaurant at the resort. While hanging out on the lawn in front of the store, we met our new friends Matt and Rich over a game of hacky sack (a real challenge in large dusty hiking boots). They were en route to Lake Edison from Tuolumne Meadows. Having learned that they were effectively homeless for the night (having placed cold beer higher on the priority list than booking a campsite), we invited them back to share our space, as the sign said we could have up to six people.

That night, we added another bear story to our collection - not about a bear per se, but about someone's way of dealing with them. Another fellow in our campsite - Scott the Internet millionaire - explained that his technique of using bear canisters was to bury them each night under a big pile of rocks. This, he told us, would prevent the bear from rolling said canister down a hill or throwing it into a creek. To each his own.