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
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