Today was a beautiful and textured day. There were only a few moments that really stood out and since I am behind on my blogging I’ll touch on them briefly and move on.
We woke up to a wet tent and looked over at poor 2.Toe and Yote who’s things were also soaking wet only they had to deal with much worse condensation and looked like they weren’t sure what to do with all their wet belongings.
We said goodbye and headed up the trail. The hiking was tough and beautiful. I took lots of pictures as we approached Muir Pass. Early in the afternoon the clouds started to gather and soon it began to rain and hail. At first it was fun but then the hail started to get large and painful so we stopped under a large cedar until it subsided.
We then continued on up some switchbacks to our next major stream crossing, Evolution Creek. Evolution was one of the difficult crossings for many earlier in the season but it turned out to be relatively mild and we crossed without incident at the trail.
We continued on until the sun came out and we stopped briefly around 3 to have lunch in the sun and get warm. The sun was soon behind some clouds so we pressed on.
About 3/4 the way up the pass we went by some beautiful lakes where many JMTrs were camped and we looked at them longingly as we hiked on. We almost camped at Evolution Lake in a beautifully sunny spot but neither of us took the lead in pushing for it so we went on.
We were both pretty tired when we reached about 3 miles before the summit and decided to camp next to a rushing alpine stream.
It was a cold night but we slept like little hiker babies.
(Photos below uploaded in reverse order)
