Mile 909 to 926.

The steady rumble of Mineret Falls filled my ears as I rubbed sleep from my eyes. It was the first night back on trail after being in town, and it felt good to wake up to the sounds of nature. I decided to wake up a little earlier than everyone to have some hot oatmeal, and I started my stove as I packed up my camp.

The others slowly crawled out of their tents and we were on trail by 5:50. As the sound of the falls faded behind us, we pressed on through the woods towards Agnew Meadows. Our packs were slowing us down and the mosquitoes were taking full advantage dive bombing us from every direction. On the brink of losing our sanity, we stopped to pull out our head nets to at least keep the little buggers out of our faces. Tonight, I plan to let a bunch of mosquitoes into my tent, zip up the door, and then methodically murder every last one. Revenge will be mine.

 

We were a little bummed by the early morning views. Meadows and pines trees are lovely and all, but we love snowy mountains. As we began the first climb of the day, we eventually got up onto a ridge and had a fantastic view of what I believe are the Minerets, a particularly jagged section of peaks, across the valley. They provided some visual candy as we slogged up the trail.

We spread out a bit as we each struggled with the weight of our packs. Coming out of a wooded area, I saw a camping area with a view and pulled over for a rest. Vipr was close behind and soon joined me. We laid out in the sun and closed our eyes as we waited for the others. Eventually, we heard someone approach and assumed it was Bedazzled, but to our surprise it was Fun Dip. We asked if she had seen Bedazzled, but she hadn’t. After a short break, Fun Dip decided to carry on, but she soon came back. “The trail disappears over there,” she said. Strange. We checked our navigation app and saw that we were slightly off the trail. We waited a little bit more, but now assumed that Bedazzled must have passed by and not seen us. The strange thing was that the trail to the camping was more distinguishable than the actual PCT. As we set off to try to catch up with Bedazzled, thunder boomed in the distance and rolled along the mountain peaks.

The trail soon turned to patchy snow as we climbed. I looked for Bedazzled’s foot prints as I went. Unfortunately, south bound JMT hikers had destroyed much of the prints, but twice I saw Bedazzled’s Brooks Cascadia 11’s imprint. We had all talked about eating lunch at 1,000 Island Lake and thought that she must be waiting up there. As we climbed up snow mounds, we found a nice river with a good view of Banner Peak. We were pretty beat and would have liked to have lunch, but we figured that Bedazzled wouldn’t feel comfortable alone and was probably worried so we pressed on.

The final mile seemed to take forever, but we finally climbed up to the lake and saw a little figure walking on the rocks. We called out and it was Bedazzled! She was relieved to see us and had gotten scared when the thunder started and she was alone. Luckily, the storm blew out to the north away from us.

Finally reunited, we sat down to a glorious lunch spot on the edge of 1,000 Island Lake. The water was as still as can be and reflected the beautiful snow capped mountains that ringed it. It almost felt like we were back in the High Sierra.

Midway through our lunch, parts of the big group started to straggle in. It turns out they left Mammoth yesterday as well. Bedazzled and I weren’t too thrilled because having 15 other people hiking around you is a buzz kill out here. It makes the experience akin to a guided tour or something of that sort. We quickly moved on, but the others soon followed and we ended up going over Island Pass together and camping in the same area. Hopefully tomorrow we can put some distance between us so we can have a more pleasurable hike.