Day 7

Has it really been a week?

I woke up to the lightening of the tent.

I really like waking up with the sun. It’s like a gentle warmth that gradually nudges me awake.

Once I was awake and coffee started, I noticed Melissa and Eagle packing up. We briefly talked. The PCT route was 14 miles to Red’s. Once they got there it was likely the end of their hike. I was ambivalent about the news. On one hand I barely knew them but on the other, I felt like the day before’s suffering really bonded us.

Melissa and I exchanged contact info. If she wanted to come train in Washington, I’d be up for it. She invited me to Australia.

Then we actually said goodbye.

I had planned to take a zero day at that camp site. “Zero days”’in thru hiker speak is when you don’t any trail miles for the day. If you nearly do a zero (I think it’s 3 miles or less), then it’s called a nearo.

Because of that I didn’t pack my tent up and was enjoying meandering around the camp site. We had three little ponds and many beautiful slabs of rock and trees. I found myself soaking up the sun, enjoying the sounds, watching the pikas and chipmunks run about… it was wonderful.

I decided to lay down and take a nap and woke up to serious cramps. My period was probably coming.

I often think about how most of the hard core ultra light hikers are male. It’s easy to go light on gear when you don’t need to worry about an entirely different dimension of issues. In my leadership at Bethany Wilderness Ministry, I’ve been trying to make feminine issues to be normalized. Male leaders will have female participants. Female leaders should be candid about the extra considerations needed to be taken for longer backpacking trips. After all, one day these guys could take their moms, sisters, girlfriends, wives or daughters backpacking. Plus, it’s nice to know how to make space for the other sex.

All of those said…

it sucks.

I stayed laying down and debated what to do. I could be miserable and lay there or I could move around. Walking generally helps my cramps in the default world. If I was moving around, it would make sense to be productive. I decided to end my time at the epic camp site and pack up. Garnet lake was only 4 miles away and I could find a camp site there, set up and go to bed early.

I packed up everything and headed to Garnet Lake.

The last reports I had heard about Garnet Lake and the JMT route to Red’s Meadow was that it was a melting snow and ice hazard. “I have no desire to slide into Garnet lake off the trail,” was a quote I heard someone say at the backpackers camp at Tuolome Meadows.

I decided that if it was too dodgy when I got there, I’d turn around and do the PCT route like Eagle and Melissa.

However, as Thousand Island Lake came into view, I didn’t see any of the snow fields I had seen in previous trip reports. I was feeling confident that the ice and snow that was reported was probably a lot more manageable now.

Thousand Island lake was stunning. It made me wish I had a pack raft so I could paddle out to the different islands and sit there and read. The name also made me crave In and Out Burger (since I think the sauce has Thousand Island in it).

Eventually I got to the inlet to Thousand Island and had to make a choice. PCT or JMT?

I had two extra days of food in my bear can. I had snow experience, microspikes and decent navigation abilities. Plus, the snow fields from my current vantage point looked manageable.

I went JMT.

It was slow going, since I wasn’t feeling well but eventually I made it to Garnet Lake. There wasn’t any camp sites available (Thousand Island and Garnet are both very popular weekend backpacker destinations), I even scrambled over some rocks and found another epic camp site, but it had already been claimed. Defeated, I went back and managed to find a site that was within regulations (away from the trail and water source) but was under a tree (I don’t enjoy camping under trees normally because I don’t want sap on my tent fly. Plus, I have an irrational fear from my Big Sur backpacking experience of a tree falling on my tent in the middle of the night).

I debated not setting up my tent and instead doing a “cowboy camp” (camping on your sleeping pad and sleeping bag out in the open. I checked the InReach forecast and decided against it. Only thing worse than sap on my tent was having rain surprise me and getting sap and rain on my sleeping gear. So, I set up the tent.

I made dinner, got water for the next day, massaged my feet and went to bed early.