Monday, July 1st
Another
quiet night and I wake to the sound of birds singing at dawn once more. I have been sleeping out in the open without any
tent or tarp and only a bug net covering my head and even that may be unnecessary as
I have seen but a few mosquito this year.
Especially when compared to last year which was horrendous. Last year if you weren’t totally covered
head to toe in clothing, netting, bug goop or some combination of these, you
would quickly become fodder for the hordes of mosquito. The reason for this was that the winter prior to that summer
of 2011 had seen record snow fall. That summer snow was still melting in full
force off of all the mountain glaciers well into August keeping the mountain meadows
moist and full of water creating fertile breeding grounds for the mosquito army
of the Sierra Mountains. This year’s
situation was a diametrical opposite.
Last winter we had one of the lightest snowfalls on record, I heard that the trail over
Donahue Pass was already clear of snow and stream and lake levels were already
dropping for the summer and as a result we have a very welcome low mosquito population this year.
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| Glacial Lake of Donahue Pass |
We are
all packed up and ready to go by around 8:30am.
We still have the cool morning air and fresh rested legs to climb the
first of mountain passes of the trip. We
take short breaks on the way up as we still getting acclimated to the
altitude but 11,056 foot Donahue pass didn’t present too much difficulty. That is except for one partial dunking I took
while crossing a stream. I was probably
doing a little too much site seeing while hoping from rock to rock across the
stream, when I miss-stepped and went down in the water backpack and all. At least I didn’t get hurt and I was able to
get up quickly and carry on. Nothing
hurt but a bit of pride as An stood laughing on the other side.
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| Climbing the pass |
|
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| Top of Donahue Pass - 11,056 feet |
Hiking
down the south side of Donahue pass takes us into the meadows of Island Pass
which is rated as many people’s favorite part of the trail. When I am asked I which part of the trail I
enjoy the most I always honestly tell them I can’t tell. I like to say that out here every day is the
best day. It always seems that no matter
how astonished you may be with one day’s discoveries the next day you will be
even more overwhelmed. That said the
hike down Island Pass towards Thousand Island Lake and Mt. Banner will always
be amazing and I will let the pictures do the talking.
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| South side of Donahue Pass |
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| Crossing Island Pass |
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| Island Pass Lake |
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| Mt. Banner |
We stop
at the shore of Thousand Island Lake, take off our packs and take a break. Another hiker and his friend join us and we
have lunch together. For me it’s hummus
and quinoa that I prepared in the morning.
It’s about 1:00 in the afternoon now and the sun fells really good on
the large granite slab we are sitting on.
I fall asleep for a bit before we decide to jump in the lake for a
rinse. It’s ice cold and we are in and
out in what is probably less than a minute.
Getting washed up in these mountain lakes is not going to be a real pleasant
option.
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| Pack train headed back to Weber Lake |
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| Thousand Island Lake and site of the ice cold swim |
From Thousand Island Lake to Red’s Meadow there are three
different trails we have to choice from.
We hear reports that trail crews are still working at clearing out last
fall’s blow down on the JMT, I hiked PCT option last year so we take the middle
route, the River Trail instead. Last
fall this part of the mountains experienced 100 MPH winds that blew down large tracts
of the forest in a freak storm. National
Forest Service (NFS) trail crews were still working on cleaning up the mess and
we were doing our best to stay out of their way. Another plus was that the river trail look
like it would have a lot less up and down to it and that would be good for An
who was starting to battle with some blisters on his feet.
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| Hiking the River Trail |
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| River Trail canyon |
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| Happy Campsite |
About
two hours of hiking later we find an established packers campground where we
even found a folding table and a shovel.
The table was handy for cooking and organizing our stuff and the shovel
was great for digging the required holes for out daily business. It was a great
location with a water fall streaming down the mountain on the other side on the
river.
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| Sleeping to the sounds of the water fall |
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