July 11th, 2019
Distance: 12 miles
Start: Island Pass, mile 41
Camp: Trinity Lakes, mile 53
“Too tired to write, so it’s actually day 4 but I’ll recap day 3 here.” That’s how today’s journal entry begins.
On day 3 we made it 12 miles, which felt like a hell of an accomplishment considering the conditions. It was another snowy day, but it felt like we were starting to get our trail legs to some degree. Though I would definitely say it was getting better, it was by no means easier. We must have just been starting to embrace the suck (aka snow).
The first part of the day was great. We had an easy descent from Island Pass and pretty quickly hit some dry trail, essentially our first since before climbing Donohue Pass. That descent took us down to Thousand Island Lakes, which on July 11 looked like this.
We stopped for a minute to take it in. It was not at all what I had imagined, since for months I’d been fantasizing over pictures of an ice-free lake. It was beautiful in it’s own right, but it was also a little sad, thinking that the rest of our “midsummer” trip would feel more like an early spring trip back home.
Here the Pacific Crest Trail and the John Muir Trail diverge. We had heard that with all the snow we should skip the JMT section and take the PCT instead, since it’s easier and reportedly had less snow. We decided that we were hiking the JMT, and we wanted to be true to it. So we pushed on past Emerald lake and toward Ruby Lake, and quickly ran into, you guessed it: more snow. We walked past beautiful Ruby Lake, where it may as well have been winter, and pushed straight uphill through the snow toward Garnet Lake. Luckily, the descent back down to Garnet was mostly dry, and we strolled into our lunch spot overlooking yet another lake that was mostly ice. On the far side of the lake, where we knew we had to go, we could see the boot track leading straight uphill through more snow.
Lunch was great, and I felt so good that I thought about jumping in the lake. But as I put my feet in the ice-cold water a cool breeze came up, and I decided that putting my feet in was more than enough to cool off. After letting my feet dry, we packed up and continued along to one of the sketchier sections of the trail. We didn’t get a good picture unfortunately, but there is a fairly steep snow slope to cross where if you slip, you’d definitely slide down into the lake. We whipped out the ice axes and carefully traversed it.
After climbing up and out through the snow, we hit some more dry trail and had a nice long descent to Shadow Creek and Shadow Lake, both of which were beautiful. We then had a nearly completely dry climb up to Rosalie Lake, which felt like an absolute treat, though it was hot and steep. Looking back, we probably should have camped there, but we had time and wanted to get some more miles in to make the day count.
That was a mistake, because the trail for quite a ways beyond Rosalie Lake was a swampy, snowy mess. We ended up calling it a day around Trinity Lakes, which were basically a large swamp, and got swarmed with mosquitos. We did get to have a fire, though, which was a nice way to end the day and keep the mosquitoes at bay for a little while.
Next Post: John Muir Trail Day 4: Red's Meadow
