Road Trip Daily

Our spirits lifted from weary (after a long hike yesterday) to cheery once we saw the Golden Staircase, an exotic coliseum of white rock.  We pointed towards the direction we had to climb: up the rock. We were mesmerized by the view as we hiked along this fantastic stretch of trail.  The beauty of earth on display once again. The trail eventually led us to Upper Palisade Lake.  We had passed two experienced hikers, Scott and Jeff, just below the Golden Staircase.  We heard them catching up to us as we rested at the lake, so we pushed upward towards Mather Pass before they could catch us.  This wilderness seemed best experienced in silence. As we neared the pass, smoke could be seem coming up the valley from where we had come.  The white stone valley, a chamber of rock, seemed to melt away from view. Once over the pass, the trail led down to a desolate upper basin strewn with stones.  We marched downward towards the valley with our heads...

We woke up to wonderful reflections off Evolution Lake.  The smoke from the previous night was gone, leaving the high alpine (11,000+ foot high) mountains in stark relief to the morning sky.  We've settled on a 5:30am wakeup call combined with a leisurely breakfast and a 7-730am pushoff, as our smoke defense.  Get miles early!  We need to do 12-14 miles per day to make Mount Whitney, the famous trail finale, in seven days.  These mornings are so wonderful: we wake up in complete darkness, have hot coffee and a yummy breakfast at sunrise, then hike as the rising sun creates each new day. We passed beautiful lake after beautiful lake on our way to Muir Pass.  When we reached Sapphire Lake, I felt compelled to jump for joy off a large boulder.  What a joy this life can be. We reached the famous Muir Hut, an emergency shelter at 12,000 feet built by the Sierra Club in the thirties.  The remoteness of this pass and the danger of the terrai...

As we walked along the San Joaquin River towards Kings Canyon, after waking at 5:30am in order to get in miles before the smoke set in, we turned a corner and saw the sky alive. It was as if we were walking through a movie set, as if a pterodactyl could emerge from the haunted sky at any moment.  The shadows radiating off the mountains forecasted both beauty and danger.  We crossed a bridge into Kings Canyon and were greeted at the border by a border guard, a deer. We stared at each other for a while and then he bounced away.  We continued. We climbed slowly up, following the river, and enjoyed countless cascading falls with misty mountains in background.  Every step brought a new beautiful scene.  We made slow progress due to my constant photo-taking. Turning left up a steep hill, we climbed towards Evolution Valley.  We saw a series of waterfalls in the distance, dropped our packs, and climbed down to the falls.  This fall was one ...

The moon shined bright this morning, adding fantasy to the delightful morning sun's glow.  The reflection of the far sand-like mountains shone wonderfully off Marie Lake's mirror surface. We struck a pose. At the top of Seldon Pass we ran into a group of fifteen Korean hikers, of all ages. As we left the pass and descended down the other side, the Korean group held up their hiking poles to make a wedding tunnel for Bob and I to walk under!  How funny?! This playfulness was cut short at Heart Lake. Bob stepped up on a phonebooth-sized boulder on the side of the trail in order to chat with another hiker below.  The boulder gave way under Bob's weight and fell fifty feet to the lake shore. Luckily Bob fell back, weighed by his huge pack, and stuck the landing, landing with both feet and two trekking poles maybe ten feet below. A mild wrist pain was his only injury.   The lake views continued in their excellence as we hiked on. Bob wrapped his wrist ...

Full-on cowboy attire was required for the dense smoke we encountered this morning as we climbed the steep Bear Ridge. We used bandannas to cover our nose and mouth, but had to remove them as we climbed, since we couldn't breath in enough oxygen with them on.  We could taste the smoke. Bear Ridge went through a quiet, serene forest with some old growth trees.  This one was likely 500 years old.  We struck up a conversation with Bellingham Dude, a smiling gentleman from Bellingham, Washington during a break halfway up the ridge.  He was amused by our (especially Bob's) cowboy look. Descending the ridge on the other side we found a natural water slide, and smartly deciding to break and slide!  We contemplated using our plastic bag pack liners to increase our speed, but thought better of risking our only rain protection to the rock.  Sliding felt wonderful and so fun, like a kid at a water park, but with the added solace of the outdoors.  ...

The diversity of life in the Sierra Nevada, the great Range of Light, shines brightly at dawn and dusk light.  We were treated to a wonderful show as we walked down a ridge toward a river on a beautifully clear morning. We crossed a long, wooden bridge at the river and then began our climb up to Silver Pass. The trail of a jetliner curved with the mountain peak above as if by design.  Trees growing out of sheer rock faces greeted us on the far side of the valley, and we hiked on towards them. The impossibility of such grand, tall trees growing at alpine heights in a few inches of soil would be a recurring miracle of our journey.  Having received such a positive and weatherman-approved prediction of clear skies at Silver Pass, I marched on with high hopes, despite feeling a bit punk-- sick at my stomach-- and weak, from an unknown source. My energy dropped and my mood turned down immediately as we crossed over the pass and saw smoke filling the ho...

We got our first glimpse of smoke far across the valley as we climbed higher. Up on a ridge after a morning climb, we followed a side trail to an open viewpoint beyond the trees. Selfie:) The smoke, while visible, seemed to give the mountains a blue glow-- like a highlighter to a sketch. You could still see the edges of the mountain ridges, the story of their creation. We could hike in this. But the smoke looked worse farther south. Or it was getting worse as time rolled incessantly forward.  On day two we had ran into a northbound hiker we nicknamed Speedy Steve. Speedy Steve had hiked 18 miles a day through eight consecutive smoke-filled days, including atleast three "very bad days" when he couldn't see the surrounding mountains, the sun glowed a haunting orange and ash accumulated overnight. On the way to Purple Lake we ran into three dirty, beat up, tired north-bound hikers with a similar story. They had to spend one night in an emergency hut at Muir Pass to avoid the...