Hike, Hike, Wait.

Day: 293

Hike, Hike, Wait.

Hike, Hike, Wait.

Hike, Hike, Wait.

After my third round of this I found myself sitting next to a bridge over Lyell Creek, just before Donohue Pass.  It was pushing 2:30pm and we had already covered 5 1/2 miles this morning.  It seemed too early to quit for the day, buy when Mom and Mike arrived we discussed our options.  Either camp here and do the pass first thing in the morning or continue on today and tackle 6 more miles plus 1700 feet up; attempting to make it to water and camp by dark on the other side of the pass.

Mom decided she had it in her to hike the rest of the day, so we powered down a lunch of cold SPAM (yum!) to save cooking time and set off uphill.

They met me at the top around 6:15pm, with the sun starting to sink low in the sky and us all exposed on an 11000 foot piece of granite.  Still 2 1/2 miles to go until “Alan Castle” – as Mike refers to him on a first name basis, as opposed to the title of the JMT guide book, which he wrote – says there is a decent camp spot.

By 7:30 we may have made half that distance down the gigantic stone steps, Mom had fallen once and Mike looked sunburned and slightly dehydrated. I realized something had to be done or we’d soon be setting up camp in the cold dark.  I added their tent to my pack and took off to find somewhere to start getting camp set up.

After about 20 minutes I found a lumpy grass meadow, next to a mosquito infested pond, which was still over the 10,000 foot limit for campfires to be allowed.  Not pristine, or anywhere near a good campsite, but it was flat and had some mucky water we could filter.

By 8:20 when my battered hiking companions arrived, I had both tents up and some freeze-dried veggie lasagna underway.

I ate, bundled up for the night, and was completely inundated with lumpy sleep by 9:15pm.