August 4

Deer Meadow to Sapphire Lake – 18.4 miles

To my mind, the iconic passes of the JMT were Forester and Muir, and this day’s challenge was Muir. Forester is iconic because of its height and the incredible, cliff-hanging trail work that enable the trail to cross that pass. Muir is more of a straightforward climb, but the beehive-like Muir Hut sits atop the pass, and I’ve seen countless pictures of this, most recently earlier this year with the hut nearly buried in snow. The day started with a continued westward descent down the Palisade Creek drainage to a junction with Middle Fork Kings River along which the JMT turns and heads north. Clouds prevailed during the day with some rain as the day started out, but rain abated once on the 11 mile climb to Muir Pass.

Along the climb, the trail passes several meadows, notably Little Pete and Big Pete Meadows successively. Shortly past Big Pete I caught up with 3 backpackers, one of whom was Jason Hollingsworth who I last saw on my first day. He had since met up with two other backpackers who had traveled most of the trail with him, Somer Dice and Harrison Brakewood. I was welcomed into this little trail family and we continued the climb to Muir Pass together. The timing was fortuitous for me, as I was feeling a bit lonely after a week on the trail, and the pass promised to be a challenge, so it would be nice to cross in company.

We were soon crossing the first of many snowfields and streams on our way up the pass. We’d heard of 2 to 3 miles of snow which turned out to be pretty accurate. The volume and depth of the snow in August was surprising. In many cases we were traversing snowfields over huge snow bridges under which streams were rushing. Adding to the challenge was a rainstorm which darkened the sky and added moisture from above to the moisture we were already getting from the stream and snowfield crossing. This last section to the summit was long, cold and wet, the most epic stretch thus far, and as it turned out, of the entire JMT.

Once at the summit we stayed for a bit at the hut, but Jason and I were stiffening up so we opted to push on to lower ground to find a campsite for the night. The lakes near the pass were still snow covered and the ground saturated with water, so we descended to Sapphire Lake before setting up camp. Rain had stopped for the day and we found relatively dry spots with spectacular views, the prettiest campsite of the entire trek for me, but at the time it was simply about setting up camp, getting on warm clothes and eating dinner. Somer and Harrison who had opted to warm up in the Muir Hut before descending, joined us a bit later, our tents visible from the trail.