9/18/2023
Section: Milepost 907.8 to 887.8
Total Trail Miles: 2049.4 Miles
Distance: 20 Miles
Moving Time: 6:06 Hrs
Elevation Gain: 4521 ft
More Lucky Charms and Coffee this morning. Not sure it’s got the same magic after I over-indulged yesterday… Will I ever learn - no, I refuse to learn. Lucky Charms are the light and the way. In any case, we packed up and headed down to a different breakfast place called The Stove. It was amazing. Seriously gave the Warming Hut a run for its money. Little more “Family Feel.” After, we went to the one, the only United States Postal Service to get a special shipment from Black Diamond.
In the beginning, I didn't like trekking poles. By the beginning, I mean like 5 years ago. You could say I was a snobby elitist who thought poles for the weak and frail. Amanda tried to convince me otherwise for a long time before one summer, in 2019, we climbed Glacier Peak and I decided to spring for a pair. Now, like many other aspects of my life I didn't go 50%, I jumped all in and invested in a 150 dollar pair of ultralites from BD. Amanda, to this day, still thinks it was stupid but - i’ve put 2500 miles on them now and they have been a life-saver the whole way. Anyway, the right-side “stick” which was originally outfitted with a metal tip has worn down to the graphite and started to chew that away. I have no idea why it’s only the right one but it is so, before leaving from Placerville, I ordered a new bottom segment from BD which was awaiting me at the Mammoth USPS.
We stopped at USPS and I picked up my new trekking pole segment. We also shipped back our ice axes and spikes. Despite the high passes ahead of us, we had good beta suggesting none of those things were worth carrying anymore. We left USPS lighter and happier - ready to charge forward into what is arguably the greatest section of California.
We couldn’t get back to Red’s Meadow anymore, the shuttle is shut down for the season so, instead, we had to settle for a ride as far as the buses would go anymore - Red Cones trailhead. We jumped on near The Stove and a bunch of families taking an early fall vacation joined as we made our way up the mountain. Mammoth is gorgeous, that’s all I could think about as our bus wound higher and higher through sunlit stands of pine trees and little alpine lakes. Eventually the bus reached our destination, Red Cones Trailhead, on the banks of Horseshoe Lake. It bears absolutely no resemblance to a horseshoe, but whatever. Here we disembarked from the bus into the bright, sunny morning and began to warm up for what would be our final segment of California - 6 days to Kearsarge pass and out to Independence, California. The gravity of what was ahead was really starting to set in.
The stage today involves a little extra mileage to climb over the Mammoth Crest headwall. From Red Cones trailhead the path meanders up past McLeod lake to Mammoth Pass from which it descends, slowly turning south. At 3.5 miles, our access trail joins the PCT/JMT (a little further downtrail from where we actually came off) and continues south. The stage passes through Upper Crater Meadows, which is the low point of the day, and begins a shallow climb to the head of a ridge which it commits too on the southside and begins traversing southeast. At 6 miles in, the PCT starts a hard climb, gaining 1000 feet in 4 miles. From here the path clings to the south side of the Mammoth Crest, undulating 500 feet several times as it travels east. At 13 miles, the stage passes over the outlet of Purple Lake and climbs just under 1000 feet to reach Lake Virginia before passing Tully Hole and dropping 1500 feet to the head of the Fish Creek valley. The final climb of the day ascends out of the valley to just before Warrior Lake.
We started our freshly charged watches and embarked from Red Cones trailhead. The sun was out and we were nice and rested. We cruised up through trees, lakes and many many day-hikers reaching Mammoth Pass quickly. From here we descended and the day hikers started to drop off with the elevation. We cruised down and got a little turned around with all the criss-crossing trails near Mammoth but eventually reconnected with the PCT. We walked south, high above Fish Creek, which roared below. The trail undulated up and down which was especially irritating as we looked down on what was likely a smooth climb up the valley on the Fish Creek Trail. It might have been less elevation to just drop down to it and climb out of the valley head.
We hiked on and, eventually, heard a familiar voice behind us. It was Paper Boat, the guy we had met the same day we ran into Amy Lu in Yosemite. We stopped and talked to him. He had stopped inTuolumne Meadows and gone into The Valley where he had gotten in trouble for pitching a tent a ways off the beaten path. It’s kinda tough to go into the Valley and come out the same day to get back onto the trail and the rangers patrol that area very hard. We laughed as he told his story and then he passed us and went on up the trail. We continued on after him.
The JMTrs are getting highly concentrated in this area, both passing and being passed by us. We slugged up to the turn-off for Duck Lake before winding around a local high-point and down to Purple Lake. We then crossed through a small saddle and passed by Lake Virginia and descended into Tully Hole. Not sure what you have to do in life to have a hole named after you. I would guess nothing good.
We climbed up past the headwaters of Fish Creek and the valley slimmed down to a narrow-ish canyon which funneled us up to a small lake just below Warrior Lake. Darkness had fallen on us but we were able to find a nice spot on an excellent granite bench to set up Josh and Maddy’s large Kelty. I went to find water while Amanda set-up the tent on an expansive, accommodating shelf. Carrying a free-standing tent is a bit heavier than the ultra-light options and some of the thru-hikers look down on it but, gotta say, not needing to stake down to anything is a win in the granite-permeated Sierra. That being said, Josh and Maddy’s Kelty is approaching a car camping tent when it comes to weight, so I am looking forward to giving it back to them before we start heading north into Washington.
After dinner we went to the back of the bench to look at the stars. Again, we saw the Starlink string of lights stream across the sky in a perfectly straight-line before, one-by-one, they winked out of existence. We took that as a good sign that it was time to go to sleep and ducked under the flaps, closing ourselves in for the night.
