The Idyllic Spirit: The High Sierra Trail

Morning came at Hamilton Lakes. We took turns filtering water since one person needed to stay with the packs at all times in case of bears. I lost myself sitting on the edge of Hamilton Lake, gazing into the water, admiring the sheer granite cliffs and Angels Wings- granite outcroppings that look like the wings of an angel. I came out of my daydream and realized Nancy was probably wondering what the heck was taking me so long.

We had 8 miles to go for the day to reach Big Arroyo Junction. I had the beginnings of blisters on the inside of each big toe. I have never gotten blisters wearing these boots. We hypothesized that it must be the pack weight (although Nancy didn't get any blisters). We had to climb up 2500 feet over the Great Western Divide and Kaweah Gap. This section of trail is extremely rocky and has many "step-ups" that work the quads and glutes to exhaustion. We climbed and climbed and climbed, switchback after switchback. When we reached Precipice Lake, I had to sit down and eat a bar. Truthfully, we should have just eaten lunch there but my thought was that we needed to get up and over this thing and then we would take a nice break for lunch. Unfortunately, that thought process doesn't work in the wilderness. 2 miles could take you more than 2 hours.

We saw Nate (a guy we met the first day) emerge from behind some rocks and he was limping. He was going to Mt. Whitney and hoped to be there by Friday. Despite his twisted ankle, he was still faster than us.

From this point forward, we would only see 1-2 people a day until we reached the John Muir Trail. None were women.

Anyway, we sat down to eat a bar. Nancy sat on a rock and promptly fell over sideways. I just sat on my rock, munching my bar, and watched her struggle to get her hip belt undone. I made no move to help her. When she had herself upright, I asked if she was alright. She said yeah and sat in the middle of the trail and ate her bar.

Precipice Lake was stunning. I could see it's beauty shimmering through the haze of my pain. I thought about Ansel Adams carrying all his camera gear out here to take his famous picture back in 1932.

We continued on, only to stop again about 15 minutes later to eat lunch. We rested at a no-name lake and soaked our feet. I had blisters that needed attention so I engaged in wound care, filtered water and ate. It was a wonderful delight to soak the feet. How refreshing!

All told, it took us about 6 hours to climb 2500 feet over a 5 mile pass. We finally made it up and over the Great Western Divide and Kaweah Gap at 10,700 feet. I count this as one of the hardest days. My legs were toast.

We descended the east side of the Divide and had nice easy, winding trail that re-entered us back into the trees. We walked alongside the Big Arroyo Creek for awhile, enjoying the ease of the terrain.

We made it to Arroyo Junction in time to do some laundry. Since we smelled like a petting zoo, we thought it was a good idea. We had to sit on a log first to rest because our legs and feet were so tired. I tried to stand up and immediately fell over the log with my pack. This sent me into fits of laughter that I couldn't control. This laughter phenomenon occurred several times during the trip and I can only attribute it to exhaustion. It was either laugh hysterically or sob uncontrollably.

I did all my laundry and, of course, none of it dried by the next day. I wore my running shorts and borrowed a pair of Nancy's socks because she was smart enough not to wash everything. We truly looked like vagrants with all our crap hanging off our packs to dry.

We slept at 9600 feet.

This is my "What did I get myself into?" face.