Evolution Lake to Rock Monster, LeConte Canyon

Waking up, the first thing I did was test my feet, stretching them out. Yes, they still hurt quite a bit, but were marginally better than when I’d gone to sleep the night before. Well, nothing to do but to get up and get moving! We were still about 8 miles away from the top of Muir Pass, but at least we would have a few miles at the beginning at a relatively even elevation before making the final climb. Getting moving, I made it about 2 miles before noticeably slowing down because of my feet. The terrain also shifted, becoming predominantly large, uneven rocks. Even when I paid close attention to how I placed my feet, trying to avoid putting excess pressure on the balls of my feet, it was unavoidable to hit a sharp rock at the wrong angle every once in a while, which would usually cause me to stop for a minute, count to 10, take a deep breath, and keep going.

Omar, meanwhile, was still stopping occasionally to check behind for me, but was getting to be a smaller and smaller dot within the talus rocks. Just when I thought this torture was going to go on forever, I came around a corner and was greeted with the gorgeous alpine Wanda Lake. Then, off in the distance, at the top of a ridge, I saw it. Muir Hut! It looked ages away still, and resembled a Hershey’s Kiss against the could backdrop, but I could see it, which meant there was an end in sight for the climb! 

With the terrain just as brutal as before, I found myself stopping more frequently, even though I wanted nothing more than to be finished with the climb. Then I started getting frustrated because Muir Hut should be an exciting milestone! Something to look forward to taking iconic pictures of, being proud to have made it up another high sierra pass. Instead, I thought it was taunting me – as I was making progress I felt like it wasn’t getting any closer. I’d never get there, either because it was a mirage, or because I’d saw my feet off first trying to get them to stop hurting. I got myself stuck in that depressing spot in my head again, put my head down, and kept going forward, no longer enjoying the views. At one point I finally looked up and noticed it was in fact getting closer (marginally), and a group of about 5 people were coming towards me, having already made it up and over Muir Pass. All of a sudden one of them goes ‘You’re Ally, right?’ That surprised me! When I answered in the affirmative, they said “Omar wanted us to tell you he’s rooting for you! You’ve got this! We’re rooting for you too!” Dang it! So far I’d made it through the morning in misery, but without crying. So let’s have something sweet and encouraging happen to just open those floodgates. That gave me a little more encouragement, and finally made it up to the top. By the time I got up there, who knows how long Omar had been waiting, it felt like quite possibly he’d been waiting for hours, although I’d guess about 45 minutes. It was early in the morning and I felt like the previous day when all I wanted to do was sit down and cry. But it was still early in the day and had several miles left to go. Omar had me set down my pack next to his, and we maneuvered past the handful of people sitting around at the top, into the hut and out of the frigid wind I noticed now that my pack was off and sweaty back exposed. Once inside and out of the howling wind, I sat down and did what I do best on the trail – let the tears come. Omar let me be for several minutes while I decompressed, busying himself with carving his name into the wooden bench, then offering the nail he’d found to do the same (this detail will be important later!). After calming down, I took a moment to get back to a better mindset and look at where we were. The Muir Hut, built in the 1800s by the Sierra Club, was a pretty amazing structure. Based on what I had just gone through, I couldn’t imagine the time and energy it must have taken to get all the stones up to the pass and get it built. And it did it’s job well – providing shelter from the elements for weary hikers. I think I fit that bill nicely, so thank you Sierra Club!

After a nice long break, we started down the other side of the pass. I won’t go into the play by play, but let’s just say the tears, pain, slow pace and general physical and mental misery continued. I really didn’t notice much of the scenery, which is a shame because when I would stop and look back, I think I missed some pretty nice stuff. This side of the pass had much more snow and ice stuck into the crevices along the trail and on the cliff sides, meaning that we were also following snowmelt and a nice, strong flowing river to our right. At one point, I passed a patch of snow next to the trail that clearly people had put handprints in and whatnot, making their mark. Then I noticed it. Omar had written ‘Go Ally 🙂 ‘ in the snow. That definitely brought a smile to my face! When I got down to where he’d decided to stop for lunch, I made sure to say thank you. We continued downhill, some stretches fairly steep, heading towards LeConte Canyon, our goal for the day. There were some really gorgeous areas along here. The snowmelt meant that, even though we were in a mostly alpine area, we would pass through small areas of lush greenery. I remember at one point going through a muddy stream crossing, and every step revealed 4 or 5 hidden frogs jumping out of their hiding places to find a safer haven. That was kind of cool to see, and something Omar hadn’t noticed, or crossed in a spot where there were none. 

Getting pretty late in the afternoon, I was wondering just when we were going to finally hit our camp spot for the night. I was exhausted (I’m sure Omar was too. I know it sapped his energy to get moving, then have to stop and wait for me, just to do that over and over again throughout the day. Tiring in a different way, but draining nonetheless), and ready to be finished for the day. Getting to the beginning of the canyon, we finally saw another famous milestone – the famous Rock Monster! A large granite boulder, split on the bottom, complete with two eyes and lined with triangle shaped rocks by hikers, it does really resemble a monster’s mouth. Of course we stopped for the obligatory pictures, and decided to call it quits for the day. By my best estimation, we were about 3/4 of a mile short of our goal for the day, but I was done, and again, it looked like it would definitely rain on us again that night. So we got set up and got dinner started. While we were doing our camp chores, a PCTer came up, looking for a camping spot – we were where she had planned on stopping. We invited her to join us if she could find a spot big enough to set up, which she did. Now the thing about PCTers is that you only know them by your trail names. Sure, Omar was Rocket and I was Tortuga, but chances were, when we met someone on the trail, we’d introduce ourselves as Ally and Omar first. Not a PCT hiker! This woman’s ‘name’ was Topo. She was from Kansas City, Missouri, and had earned her name due to her ability to actually read topographical maps…a skill apparently lacking in the other PCT hikers she found herself hiking with for a stretch of the trail. A slightly unnerving thought considering a PCT hiker has the daunting task of making it 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada, I would think that being able to read a map would be a requisite skill. As the three of us were chatting, Claire also made it down to the rock monster! She found a spot to set up as well, so we were a happy family of 4 for the evening. The social evenings with trail family always seemed to come at the right time, after a particularly taxing day either physically, mentally, or both. The perfect thing to help take my mind off my worries about my feet.

We’d already started our dinner when Topo came along, so I was finishing washing the dishes when Claire came down the mountain, and it had already started raining. Not just sprinkling this time, true rain. With the occasional thunder. I love thunder and lightning storms, and Omar had mentioned earlier in the day that he wanted to spend one night falling asleep to the sound of rain and thunder. Looks like he was going to get his wish tonight! So we both climbed into the safety and warmth of our tents. It was early, but there was no need to stand around out in the rain. I started writing in my journal, needing to catch up from the previous day in addition to the current one. I could see some bright flashes indicating lightning, and HUGE booming thunder. The kind that is so loud it almost hurts your ears and you swear the ground shakes from the force. Pretty cool stuff! After finishing my writing, I put down my journal on the floor of my tent. 

Squish.

Weird…..I put the palm of my hand on the floor of my tent. Squish. Patting my hand several times, it felt almost like….a waterbed….but my hand came back dry. That couldn’t be good. I sat up and looked outside my tent and had a moment of panic. The first thing I noticed – my camp shoes were FLOATING AWAY, the only thing stopping them was the edge of my rainfly. Definitely not good. With all the constant rain, what looked like a level campsite was apparently in a slight depression and I was now in a LAKE. I called out to Omar. I don’t think he believed me when I screeched that “My tent is in the middle of a LAKE!!!! Get out here!!!!!” He didn’t move fast enough for my liking (although in retrospect I’m lucky and grateful he came out into the pouring rain at all), and I called to him again. I opened up the door to my tent and put my hand straight down to gauge how deep it was. It was still below the waterproof line on my tent, but I was afraid to get out because knowing my luck, I’d bend my tent the wrong way and let all the water in. The water went up to about my knuckles, so was at least 4″ deep. And it had been less than an hour since we got into our tents, so I feared if it kept raining I really would get washed out. Omar came over to assess the situation. He got some sticks and rocks and started digging a couple of trenches to help direct the water down and away. I used my arms inside the tent to help shove water out from under my tent and away. After a good 10-15 minutes, we finally got most of the water away. I could see some ground, and it wasn’t building up anymore. Grateful, it seemed I would survive the night after all. I was still dry in my tent. My sleeping bag is a down bag, so had it gotten wet, I would have been absolutely screwed. They take FOREVER to dry. Eventually the rain lightened up, and I felt confident that I wouldn’t wake up in another lake of water. 

I was also extremely thankful I’d had some sort of unconscious premonition it would get wet that night. Because of my one-person tent, my bag gets stored outside the tent, under the fly. I hadn’t done this a single time during the trip so far, but had decided to put my pack cover on my backpack, and store it on the ground with the pack cover facing the ground. So my bag was dirty, but dry. Thank goodness for small miracles! I noticed that even though my tent had been set up well, with the rain fly nice and taught, with the heavy rain, it was touching the main tent in several places, meaning there was a chance of getting wet or condensation building up. I snuggled into my bag, determined not to toss and turn like I normally do to minimize the chance of touching the tent and getting wet inside. My tent had done well, and kept me dry just like it was supposed to. My pack cover did it’s job keeping my pack dry. Omar did his job, above and beyond, coming to the rescue! I don’t like playing the damsel in distress card very often, but I’m glad he answered the call when I did! I think I covered this in the first entry, that I named my bag Wilson in honor of the first mountain it had been on. Perhaps now I would need to name my tent Noah’s Ark. 

It was kind of appropriate that, after a day where I didn’t remember that many scenic details because I just had my head down not paying attention, that nature repaid me with what would be one of my most memorable evenings on the trail!