50 — Mather Pass

Mile 811.3 —826.3 (15 miles)

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Rose: midday swim at Lower Palisade Lake Thorn: too late in the day to enjoy the gorgeous swimming hole next to camp tonight Bud: more swimming opportunities tomorrow, should be good weather

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It did not rain on us today. Huzzah!

Condensation wasn’t too bad waking up. Mostly just wet tent footprints from setting up during the rain yesterday.

A leisurely climb today compared to the other passes: only 2,000 foot climb over 4 miles to Mather Pass. The shortness aided by the high valley last night: we didn’t drop below 10,000’.

The pass crossed a big scree/boulder field with switchbacks. Several boulders had shifted in the winter, necessitating reroutes. At the top of the pass was a crew of people who I had camped with the previous night. All strays, left over solo hikers wandering between groups.

The descent had a few more patches of snow than the other patches. I dropped behind the other individual hikers and then found the lunch spot where we reconvened and then an hour later we reconvened a mile down the trail on the shore of Lower Palisade Lake. It took us two hours to go one mile.

It was finally warm today after the last two days of threatening rain. I couldn’t bring myself to fully submerge in the snowmelt water. The wind was a bit too brisk to risk getting all my clothes wet, so I sat down in the shallower end for a few minutes. It felt like an ice bath. Another hiker named Gib checked off his bucket list, “float in an alpine lake on your air mattress.”

The trail after that dropped into a gorgeous valley. Thousands of feet of switchbacks. Everyone coming up looked so haggard. We would ultimately drop 4,000’ only to go back up 4,000’ for Muir Pass (but that’s a tomorrow problem).

The valley bottom turned into a lush river valley with aspens, Sequoias, turns in the river filled with golden trout, and lush grasses. The descent hurt my feet, so it was pleasant to find the group of ragtag hikers about an hour before I had planned on stopping. I figured company was as good a reason to stop as any.

We’re all rationing our food. Even though it seemed like I bought so much food and still have so much, it’ll get me to VVR and no farther. I was hoping that skipping the bougie retreat would help me make up the day I lost to the storms, but like others, I find myself in need of food.

At camp: Hurdle, Gibbs, Magic Beans, Elvis, a couple I didn’t talk to