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More Mileage, Day 4

Day 4 dawned on us and my personal dream faded. We decided to get back to the actual trail rather than risk any more offtrail adventure by heading north over either of the two passes that were available to us. I think Gant’s expression in this picture sums up his feelings about taking on pants pass with packs (it is coincidentally in the background, on the left side of the notch behind his right shoulder), or maybe it was just indigestion, I guess we’ll never know. The pass could have been so easily renamed posthumously to Gants’ pass too, by just changing one letter on maps. Ahh well, there will be another time for pants pass I suppose, here it is with Jared wearing his hairnet for some reason.

So we packed up, (Gant, Jared) looking a little more grim after three full days of high elevation packing and not a whole lot of great deep sleep as of yet. The whole tent + sleeping bag/pad + elevation + exhaustion + dehydration + rocks/hard ground == crappy sleep in general, add in Gant’s bathroom trips twice a night and he apparently got less/worse sleep than Jared and I. Nonetheless, we had work to do and so we headed south, to join back up with the High Sierra Trail in all it’s glory. It is indeed beautiful, though in a different way than the higher elevations of the Sierra.

We hiked through the most glorious meadow that I have ever imagined as we headed south. I knew I couldn’t capture its beauty with my camera so I didn’t even try. I do believe that it is our version of Andelain, for anyone who gets that reference. I could spend years there, drinking in the mountains and breathing the grasses, truly a heaven on earth in that meadow just south of the Kaweah Gap on the High Sierra Trail.

All too soon we came to a magnificent stream crossing with a stunning backdrop of Sierra granite. We did our first laundry here, and despite the fact that Gant is the darkest of us all, he was the only one to get sunburnt here, shocking considering how white Jared is and I’m not much different.

So, after this stunning meadow and creek we continued on. We had alot of miles to cover to get to Moraine lake by nightfall, a good portion of it uphill again. So, on we went, clean(er) clothes and all, though within the hour they stank again. Really at this point it was turning into a mileage slog, trying to get miles down and done to get to a spot to camp. Nothing challenging or technical; just mileage, mileage, mileage. The lower elevations turned into a deep forest and some nice cliffs overlooking the forest. Then it turned into a deep, old, lonely forest with not much of a trail to follow, just a few footsteps in the dirt ahead of you to follow.

Eventually we got to Moraine lake and setup camp and our first fire since night one, which was nice.

So ended Day 4, about 12 miles after it began.