Day 12

Day's start: Muir Trail Ranch
Day's end: McClure Meadow
Day's miles: 11.3 miles
Total trip miles: 117.8 miles

I can't lie. It was hard to wake up this morning, what with all the pillows, and sheets, and quilts... the wine from last night probably added to that feeling a little. We slept in a little bit, and then got moving in the direction of the stone building that housed the re-supply buckets. While Aaron started to sort through our food and supplies for the remainder of the trip, I found my way to the computer. After sending my parents a quick "thank you sooo much for The Birthday Bucket" e-mail I made a quick trip around the premises to take some pictures of beautiful Muir Trail Ranch. This was the last place we would stop on this trip that resembled civilization, and I realized that I hadn't taken that many pictures of our stay at Red's Meadow or VVR - I couldn't let that happen again.

The sign for backpackers.

The board for today's specials and menu differed a little from what we saw yesterday, but it still looked just as appetizing.

Inside the stone building that housed all the re-supply buckets.

The wonderful hot spring...

 ...and warm spring.

After a huge, delicious breakfast (fruit salad, quiche, scrambled eggs, sausage, and other baked delicacies), we finished sorting through our re-supply buckets and considered weighing our packs on a scale we found. For this trip, we each had a starting base weight of 14 pounds (base weight = total pack weight minus food and water), and we were both curious to see how much our packs weighed with eight days of food and supplies.

Aaron's pack

 A smidge under 30 pounds including the bear canister stuffed with all the food and supplies we would need for eight more days on the trail.

 My pack

 

Everything included weighing about 26 pounds... I think at about 29 and 26 pounds for eight days we were doing all right, considering we ran into people with 68 pound packs (not kidding).

Around noon, we set off determined to get to McClure Meadows by evening. I was slowing us up a tad because the balls of my feet were hurting me quite a bit. As it turned out, I had given myself matching big blisters on the ball of both feet from the long and steep decline to MTR the previous day. I remembered that decline as being very sandy and feeling like the bottoms of my feet were starting to get rather hot. I should have stopped to shake the sand out of my shoes, but I was too excited to get to MTR, so instead I rushed downhill, neglected my feet, and now I was paying the price. As luck would have it, my parents had included a large roll of blister tape in The Birthday Bucket, so I stopped multiple times to try to fix my new blisters and make walking more comfortable. Lesson learned: always stop to take care of your feet, no matter what.

Along the way today, we crossed over the San Joaquin River several times and even passed from the John Muir Wilderness to Kings Canyon National Park. 

 

Hiking into our fifth wilderness area, King Canyon National Park.

The San Joaquin River that we followed and crossed over for most of the afternoon.

Crossing Evolution Creek and nearing the much talked about Evolution Valley.

 A little more than two miles from our endpoint for the day, McClure Meadow, we took our shoes off to cross Evolution Creek and spied Team Daypack on the other side of the river. I hadn't expected to catch up with them again so soon (they continued on past MTR, while we had stayed the previous night), especially after the girl team member had bragged about the big miles they logged daily. A little further up the trail, we passed Team Daypack and gradually wound our way around McClure Meadow. The sun was going down and cast a yellowish tint over everything as we made our way through the meadow and found our camp spot for the evening. We had heard the last 100 miles of the John Muir Trail, especially Evolution Valley which we would pass through tomorrow, was perhaps the most beautiful part of the trail. After watching the sunset in beautiful McClure Meadow, I'm excited for the scenery to come.

Nearing our campsite at McClure Meadow as the sun began to set.

 Still enjoying each others' company after 117 miles... I'd say that's pretty good.

Twilight view from our campsite in McClure Meadow next to Evolution Creek.

You can enlarge any of these pictures by clicking on them.