Day 11: July 25, 2014
We woke up, ate breakfast, packed, and were on the trail at our usual time. Just as we re-joined the JMT, the H party joined us.
A, JKW, and I were surprised at how long the hike to the Woods Creek bridge was--we had hiked all the way from Palisade Lake to the bridge in 2010, and the final push from the Sawmill junction hadn't seemed too long... Of course, it had been one of those "this campsite could work, but let's see if there's something better further down" kinds of affairs, in which we never did find a better campsite. Woods Creek has several nice cascades along this stretch, but the rough rock makes for less-than-ideal camping. We had ended up setting up our camp in the dark that night.
There isn't really any smooth, open granite until just above the bridge, known informally as the Golden Gate Bridge of the Sierra, which took a while to cross due to the one-person-at-a-time rule and short lines on both sides.
Once across the bridge, we started the long climb to the Rae Lakes basin, looking back occasionally to gauge our progress.
We eventually reached Dollar Lake, and not far past it, we could see Fin Dome; from here the climb would ease until the final haul up Glen Pass.
We saw only a few people as we strolled around the various camping areas near the lakes.
As we neared the largest of the Rae Lakes, we heard on the radio that the others were swimming right where the trail crosses the outlet of the highest lake.
We had stopped at other places in this basin to swim the past few times, but this location had the best swimming--the water was deep and there wasn't nearly as much mud or algae to kick up from the bottom. The cool water was welcome relief from the hot sun, especially since we were somewhat sheltered from the wind.
After the swim, we were back on the trail, slowly working our way up to Glen Pass.
We encountered a few more people than we had on other passes, undoubtedly due to this pass being on the popular Rae Lakes Loop as well as the JMT.
Although we'd seen others at the top of the pass, when we arrived we were the only ones there. As in 2010, A had ran ahead to meet up with E (aka "Sweetie" ), who was hiking in from Kearsarge Pass. The wind was very strong so we didn't spend much time on its knife-edge-like summit.
We looked back on the Rae Lakes basin one more time before dropping down into the Bubbs Creek drainage.
Just before we could see Charlotte Lake, we heard on the radio that "Sweetie" was near Bullfrog Lake and would meet us at the third trail junction.
We quickly dropped to the flat sandy area where the first of the junctions was, and soon joined the others at the third junction.
E had brought in some wonderful treats, including fresh berries and potato chips, which we enjoyed while resting a bit. We still had a few miles to go, so we were once more on the trail, dropping down to Vidette Meadow while looking up-canyon at East Vidette and Center Peak.
We had been planning on camping at the site near the bear locker at the old Center Basin junction, and JKW and M had flown down the trail down to and past Vidette to try to stay ahead of other hikers also looking for a "home" for the night. But after a bit of uphill asked that I rush ahead to secure the site. I pushed hard for awhile, but a note left on the "no fires above 10,000'" sign indicated that another group was already at this site. Fortunately, there was a nice, large, flat--and unoccupied--expanse of granite not far past this sign that made for an even better campsite. Its water access was much better than that of the site near the bear locker and was perfect for soaking weary (or, in the case of L, blistered) feet.
Deep in the canyon, we lost direct sunlight all too soon, but the mild temperatures were still with us and we enjoyed a comfortable evening at our site, watching the clouds turn pink as the sun slowly crept up the tall peaks surrounding us.
Unfortunately, I found out that one of the socks I had been hanging on my pack to dry had gone missing; I could still repurpose my sleep socks for hiking if my other pair didn't hold out.
I'm not sure any of us appreciated the slight increase in cloud cover, which cleared by nightfall.
Tomorrow we'd be facing Forester Pass, which given its height probably would have been more intimidating if we didn't already have several high passes behind us.