Had a great night of sleep! After a solid ten hours of sleep we woke up feeling pretty refreshed. The first seven plus miles of the day were uphill to Mather Pass. It was a pretty exhausting climb, but we just did it slow and steady so it wasn’t so bad. We realized as we hiked, that it was possible to hammock closer to the pass, just above Palisades Lake.
There were definitely a lot of people on the trail today. We met several groups of CCC Americorps volunteers working on the trail today. They have hard work to do in high elevations and have a tough walk to and from camp each day.
Got up to Mather Pass by noon and had a quick lunch before heading down. The pass was described as the most feared because of the sheer drop off on the north side. Without snow it is not fearsome at all…but it is clear that it would be quite sketchy with a lot of snow. The trail down from the pass was very well-made switchbacks down an extremely steep slope. Sweetpea decided to listen to the iPod on the way down to take her mind off her hip which has a hard time on the downhill. It was actually a really smooth and nice downhill to the big basin at the bottom. The trail then smoothed out for awhile as we gradually lost elevation.
We continued to leapfrog with all the other hikers on the trail and made it to camp by 3:30. There are several other groups of hikers camped nearby. We had time to do some laundry and Sweeetpea even rinsed out her shirt. She wasn’t able to get the sweat stains out, but hopefully it won’t smell so bad. Had another dinner of potatoes tonight. At least we had some tapatio and salami to put in them, but still we are so sick of potatoes. And we know we have potatoes for dinner the next two nights. 🙁 Today’s total miles was about 12. We’re going to try to head out a little early tomorrow since we have 15 miles planned.
Daily Miles: 12
Total Miles: 160.4
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