JMT Day 14 — 8/17/24
Golden Staircase to Bench Lake Ranger Station
We All Trip Camp to Living In A Haze Camp
JMT miles: 12.4 miles
JMT total: 134.2 miles
Elevation change: 3,379ft gain, 2,159ft loss
It was a blur of a day. Lots of great stuff, some not so great. Lots of hiking, not a lot of resting. Lots of hazy brains, and lots of wind. And although the elevation gain was on the huger end of the spectrum, this dynamic duo finished strong and in good spirits. Yesterday afternoon left us chewing on our doubts, but a scrappy follow-up helped us put those fears to rest, at least temporarily. I wouldn’t say that we’re now feeling strong and back in the groove, but this whole make-it-to-Whitney thing still feels possible now, which is something that I won’t take for granted anymore.
Our precarious perch at the foot of the Golden Staircase was peaceful and warmish when we got moving at the normal 6am. With unspoken focus, Flower Power and I took care of business a little faster than usual, and we were ready to hike at 7:20am. Watching the dreadful heat of sunrise make relentless progress towards us from the now-distant LeConte up Palisade Creek urged us to move quickly. This mega climb ahead of us would be best done in the shade.
Flower Power’s scratches were scabbed up and presumably healing. I was happy to see that there was no bruising or swelling, just some badass scrapes on a badass hiker. Together we wondered whether any strangers would bring it up. We both doubted it, but I bet that someone would, putting a packet of lemonade mix on the line to keep things interesting.
It was hard to guess our path upward until it was directly in front of us. The Golden Staircase and its misleading name zigzagged in tight switchbacks between vertical sections of bare granite. Occasionally we would catch a hint of the direction when a descending hiker bounced into view, but mostly we dutifully followed the rocky path upward to some unseen goal. Progress was slow, but steady, and our campsite shrunk below us until it was just another ledge in the jumble.
In several places, the trail had been washed out, which required a few steps of airy edge walking to circumvent the destruction. At each, I watched Flower Power closely, overprotective now after yesterday’s trip, but she handled them all with aplomb. With the stakes at their highest, she delivered.
The staircase was an engineering triumph, and finally we crested the granite cap, high above the valley floor, still not really sure how we got there. And while we caught our breath, did they build a trail like this from the bottom up or top down? Guessing was futile. I could argue for both tactics.
Now that we were on top, the sun felt good as we cleaned up the final stretch to Palisade Lakes. On the staircase, it felt as if we were climbing high into the alpine, far away from growing things and comfy flat surfaces. It was just rock everywhere. But now we discovered a hidden paradise stretching along two lakes that pooled between huge ridges. The sinister black rock of the Palisades group formed the eastern wall. Middle Pal and Disappointment Peak were too wicked to look at for long, somehow inducing vertigo in me even though I stood on soft shoreside lawn thousands of feet below the craggly summits. The western edge was unknown to me, and hidden around the slight banana bend was Mather Pass, our big goal for the day.
A pair of hikers were still packing up camp, but they didn’t mind us when we dropped our packs for a quick break. Our intermediate achievement was worth celebrating with a bar and freshly filtered lake drank. Both were good. However, like fine sand slipping through my fingers, our half-hour break had doubled in length without anything to show for it. Frustratingly, all of our advantage, and thus my good feelings about it, vanished before we could enjoy it. Where the time goes, we may never know.
Now I was anxious about making good time up to the pass. Even though I knew it was stupid and that we would get there when we got there, I let pace calculations fill my mind with their never-fast enough admonishment. That is until Flower Power rolled her ankle with an unlucky step. That scared me and bummed her out big time. These morale-crushing missteps coming in such close succession were enough to sow seeds of doubt in anybody, but again, the physical damage appeared to be negligible. The ankle felt fine enough for walking, so on we walked.
A smoky haze filled the basin as we switchbacked on variable trail towards 12,000ft. First, we could see the slight blue tint stretch distances unnaturally. Then we could smell it. We were far from any dense vegetation now, so burning to death wasn’t realistic, but I didn’t like the pollution one bit. It degraded my coveted views and plugged my nose. And was that the starting twinge of a headache? I poured an ancient green tea Crystal Light into my bottle. Maybe the caffeine could help. Did this stuff even contain caffeine? The package was rubbed clear of any useful information after years of neglectful transport in my hip belt pocket.
By the time we topped out on Mather at 12:30pm, my headache was a certified ripper. This was more than smoke, perhaps payback for letting my hydration slip yesterday. I popped two Advil (yep, that’s a name-brand flex) and wished that I had taken them earlier. No offense, green tea.
Despite the smoke, the views were still fine as they always were from up here. The Palisades, in particular, caught my gaze. As aspirational summits for almost two decades now, they drew me in even though I was scared of them. To the south was Upper Basin and all the vastness that it contained within a rim of big mountains. Some I knew, most I didn’t. It was one of my favorite places so I didn’t sweat the details.
But bigger than the views or my headache was my pride in Flower Power for pushing through the doubt to summit one beast of a pass. Mather was no joke, about 4,000ft above our low point yesterday, with many miles of horrendously rocky trail between here and there. Although it was destined to be lost in the greater arc of the JMT, Mather was itself a remarkable achievement. And for someone with zero appetite for steep drops, I applauded her for hanging out on the precipitous ridge for a full 30 minutes. After a bar and swig of water, we followed some other hikers onto the downward switchbacks. The gloriously sandy flats of Upper Basin awaited.
My headache lost its edge, but my mind remained as muzzy as the air. My eyes burned a little bit too, but that might have just been sunscreen. With all this going on, I was grateful for the cruisy trail as it efficiently transmitted us across a huge distance in no time. I wished that I could have been sharper for one of my favorite places in the world, but the haze was fine too. My brain can overthink sometimes, so it wasn’t all bad that it was lagging. It was a blissful daze. I smiled at the big mountains around us and remembered this and that from previous visits.
Lunch was late and fast once we found cover from the wind in the thin edge of treeline. Then there was more good walking to the Kings River where it snaked through the woods before continuing west down a canyon with no trail. Finally, we took a good chunk out of the climb to Pinchot Pass before finding a supremely alright campsite on a sandy bench with a full panorama of peaks. The hazy sunshine was warm while we had it, but the altitude got the better of us when it faded to gray. At 11,000ft, it didn’t take long to chill, and we scarfed our pot of beans hastily so that we could get in bed.
The moon was almost full when it lept into the sky to blind us all night. That was fine though. Morale was high again, and we were on track to reach our resupply rendezvous on schedule. Plus, my beanie was an effective moonlight blocker, and the fuzziness in my head was gone. Hopefully, the smoke would be in the morning as well.
Hike For Days 