Hike for a Hospital

We left bishop late morning and hitched back to the trail head. I tried to look as neat and tidy as possible to get a ride but that has become increasingly hard after 2 months on the trail. We walked to the base of kearsearge pass and set up camp above a lake. The next day I collected snow at the top of glen pass and made iced coffee for lunch. I did not collect any yellow snow. We camped in the river valley at the bottom of woods ck and had a wicked campfire. Wiz and cactus taught me a dice game called silo and we gambled for drink sachets. Turns out peach mango is not a very popular flavour and was mostly used to piss off anyone who bet any other packet first.

The next day we walked up woods creek which ran in part, straight over a slope of solid granite. It had not eroded into a canyon yet and spilled over the rock like a waterside. I did not attempt to ride this slide as the result probably would have been a broken limb and/or face. We crossed over pinchot pass and camped at the base of mather pass at almost 12,000 ft. It was a very cold night cowboy camping and our water bottles had ice in them in the morning. We had a long downhill (my favourite) to the valley floor the next day and Unbeknownst to me I passed cactus who was soaking a severely injured foot. he didn't end up catching up to wiz, Dubz, action pack and I before the end of the day but He would have been impressed with the camp site we made beside the creek with such extreme speed. I believe we should probably be classed as thru-campers now as we are getting up increasingly late in the morning (830 am starts) and finishing early (7pm) to make sweet campfires. The next day was muir pass and it was my best day so far. The climb up was beautiful and we stopped multiple times to soak in the scenery. The best stop was lunch where dubz thought it would have been funny if a narwhal appeared out of the glacial lake and offered us snow cones. Cheeeery flaaavourred. fun times.

On top of muir pass there was muir hut, a stone hut with a cone shaped roof. It was a nice afternoon surprise as none of us had bothered to read our guidebooks the last few days. We had a great view of a mini glacier (not a real glacier) where the remaining snow on the south side of the pass appeared to flow down slope for a couple of hundred meters. Geology! I ran the last 8 miles down the hill set up camp just below 10,000 ft so we could have a campfire. I built a fire. I built the fire to make hot coals. We use them to cook every night now as we like to save fuel, but really it is just a good excuse to stop early every day.

The next day we walked down evolution valley. Cactus had miraculously recovered the previous day after an eagle flew over him when resting. Spirit animal. And he caught up to us when we were chilling at the first spot with no Mosquitos in the valley. We took a mini side trip down to a waterfall to take photos. Ec talked us out of swimming in a dangerous hole below the waterfall, and we took a swim in a calmer spot further down the valley. It was unbelievably cold. George castanza was correct when he claimed shrinkage is a real thing.

Our next major stop was the vermillion valley resort where we caught a ferry to and took a zero day. I had steak, eggs and pancakes for breakfast. Delicious! Cactus, wiz and I played risk and drank beer. It was a very productive day.

The next day we walked to purple lake and I met some kiwis who were doing the John Muir trail southbound. They said the trail so far had too much forest and switchbacks and it was boring. I told them that the trail coming up was amazing and they shouldn't worry. What I didn't know is that they had just walked past Virginia lake, one of the most amazing lakes on the trail. If I have known that I would have told them they were crazy to think any of the sierras were boring. We went for a swim at the lake and sat on the shore for an hour until it started to get dark. We walked on to purple lake where Dubz and Ec had started a campfire for us lazy boys.

We walked the last 10 or so miles into reds meadow and I had a milkshake and a beer. We got the bus into mammoth where little steps had our accommodation sorted. We slept in a condo, dubz and ec made grilled cheese for dinner and I made eggs Benedict in the morning.

Photos now attached.