Marjory Lake to Palisades Lakes
In our rush to get up and over Pinchot pass last night I had forgotten to mention to Keith that I’d been carrying three extra breakfasts for him. But at breakfast today I certainly remember and am not terribly gracious when I point out this fact. The whole “Extra Breakfast Kerfuffle of 2017” isn’t his fault, it’s not really anyones fault, it’s just a mistake. But that doesn’t keep me from being an unnecessary jerk about the whole thing and huffing out of camp. Smooth move, Kieffer.
I hammer down the trails this morning, carelessly crossing a creek and as a result foregoing any chance I had to keep my feet dry today. I don’t stop hiking until I’m well into the forest a few miles from camp. At which point I’m forced to confront that I’m being an asshole to Keith over a mistake that I made, and that if I keep this pace up I’ll leave him in the dust which isn’t really cool since the permit has my name on it and we need to stick together. So I put my big girl under-roos on, park myself on a rock, and promptly apologize to Keith when he arrives. Adulting! I’m learning!
The rest of the morning we descend down into the deep forest that grows along the South Fork of the Kings River. There is so much oxygen down here! And it’s so much warmer! And today we’ll cross our first ever official JMT foot bridge. Which, I recognize sounds really lame, but it’s actually really cool since it’s a suspension bridge, far sketchier than I thought it would be, and feels vaguely like a Disney ride in that it’s probably safe but there is really no evidence of that.
Climbing alongside the Kings River is like walking through a natural water park. The bright aquamarine water spills through slot canyons pouring white into round pools carved by eons of continuous water flow. The trail stays far above the water to give you an excellent view of this natural show. This also makes it impossible to get water from the river, as one slip down the steep banks would end in being swept down stream and like 50/50 odds of dying. Even though it’s late in the season, the unusually high snow year means that the rivers are still flowing high and fast.
By the time we finally find a tributary stream we can gather water at, we’re both well and fully bonked, and disappointed in how little milage we’ve covered. We take our break alongside a perfect little mountain creek in the company of a group of hikers my parents age.
One woman is talking about her dislike of Trump and her corresponding liberal political views, which results in the kind of long gaping conversation pauses indicative of people who don’t want to talk politics in nature. I both understand and resent her hiking partners for taking the silent approach. It’s hard to see affluent older white men who are so uncomfortable speaking up about politics, or perhaps even secretly approving of our president that they opt for silence instead of trying to engage and understand conflicting view points. Or perhaps they are so cowardly about their own beliefs that they’re uncomfortable speaking about them. Either way, I’m glad when they all pack up and move on, and after a while we do the same.
The rest of the long climb to the pass Keith entertains us with his never ending litany of puns. I think if he could, Keith would speak in nothing but puns, luckily for all of us he’s never managed to figure that out. Today’s offerings revolve around the fact that Mather sounds a lot like rather – and you can probably see where this is going, but by half way up the pass we’re laughing and trying not to asphyxiate in the thin air while we dream up 80’s style photoshoots for the pass, all of which will be captioned with the phrase “there’s no place I’d Mather be.” Actually, I’m not sure that any sane person would view that as the logical outcome of such a terrible pun. But maybe those sane people don’t use all their vacation days to go exercise in nature for thee weeks either.
By the time we’re actually on the pass we’ve lost much of our photoshoot-mojo. This, combined with the presence of a handful of lady hikers means that we only take about three pictures before our self consciousness get’s the better of us. Just before we leave to descend there is the Sacred Exchanging of Beta, a vital ritual that happens when you get a chance to talk with people who have just left the area you’re about to enter. We tell them they’ll have no snow until the south side of Pinchot pass, which is largely mellow and uneventful. Then they tell us that we’re heading towards a sketchy snow patch on the north side of Mather, but that there is a well marked rock scramble around it and you’d be an idiot to cross the snow where the trail is.
As if to illustrate this point a man summits the pass, he’s sporting several bright spots of road (snow) rash from falling on the snow because he decided to attempt to cross where the trail was, lost his footing and slid/fell. This is exactly my fear and 100% not an experience I’m looking to emulate. It’s quickly apparent that he’s mostly fine, if not a little shaken, and we depart the pass being since we are able to offer no additional help than another pair of staring eyes.
The rock scramble on the descent is fine. The snow crossing is clearly a bad choice – as evidenced by the absence of any foot prints aside from falling guy. In general getting down Mather is so relaxed and the detours so logical that I’m actually a little mad at the Aussies for scaring the crap out of us two days earlier. Keith wisely points out that maybe taking snow crossing advice from people who live in a country almost completely without snow is in poor form. Add to that the rogue, 70lb unpredictable animal that is hiking with a child, and you can see how almost any snow crossing would be sketchy. Lesson learned.
We’re camped along Palisade Lake for the night, and while I set up the tent Keith goes to filter water and then yes, fish. I relax in the tent and read until the failing light forces me out of my warm cocoon to call Keith in for dinner. Tonight he has caught one – barely big enough to bother eating – fish. A trout of some sort which I promptly name Trevor, and then promptly regret giving our dinner a name.
A little backstory, dear reader. Before we left for the JMT Keith and I made a deal that if he caught a fish worth eating, and killed it, I’d do the dirty work of gutting, cleaning, and filleting it. Honestly, when I agreed to this, I thought he’d never catch a fish let alone one that’s big enough to eat. But a deal is a deal and that’s how I found myself squatting next to a creek, in the near dark, gutting a fish with a Swiss Army Knife grateful for the fish gutting PDF that Keith made me download. In the end, dispatching of Trevor’s entrails is not as gross as I thought it would be, and if you’re going to eat meat I think you have to be willing to know where your food comes from and what it’s like to butcher it. And what it’s like really isn’s so bad once you’ve cut the head off and it’s stopped staring at you.
Then, sleep. Next to a beautiful lake that reminds me of all the incredible things we’ve seen on this trail, and which I’ll almost certainly be unable to fully capture with words.