Day 17: Pinchot Pass to Arrowhead Lake

From JMT mile 156.1 to 169.4 Total: 13.3 miles hiked 8/15

On the seventeenth day of my John Muir Trail trek I left Lake Marjorie at dawn to climb over Pinchot Pass, then descended along Woods Creek to the famous suspension bridge, and spent the afternoon climbing south to Arrowhead Lake in the Rae Lakes Basin.  It was a tough day but a great one.

Keith and I woke up at 4am, as usual.  I got out of my tent for a call of nature and took a night-shot photo of the stars above moonlit Lake Marjorie.  Then I went straight back to the tent and stuck my legs in the sleeping bag while I cooked up some oatmeal for breakfast.  It was cold out there!  Even in August it gets cold at 11,200 feet, and this was our highest camp yet.  I packed as rapidly as possible after eating, and soon I was ready to go.

We left camp at 5:30am, barely at first light.  We were hiking with our headlamps on, although the sky was lit in the east.  There was a faint touch of alpenglow on Crater Mountain, the volcanic peak to the south, and it glowed with a reddish cast.  The lake was calm, but not perfectly so, as there was a chill breeze blowing down from the pass.  I decided, like a fool, not to wear my goretex jacket to protect me from the wind, but at least I wore my gloves.  The only way to stay warm was to keep on moving.

We had to climb about a thousand feet over the next mile and a half, and it took us an hour and a half to do it.  Pretty steep, in other words.  The chilly air made it easy to keep on hiking without too many rests.  We trudged on.  Along the way there was a lovely high pond nestled up next to Crater Mountain.  This peak was obviously volcanic, but it was hard to say where the “crater” was located.  I have a feeling that the glaciers of the Ice Age had more to do with the shaping and erosion of this peak.  Still, compared to the endless gray granite of the High Sierra, this was the most colorful stone we’d seen in quite some time.

Soon, we came in sight of the pass itself, and saw Mount Wynne standing tall to the east.  This peak was granite for sure, but it had interesting cracks and intrusions of a more golden-colored granite.  Very pretty.  We watched as its shadow was cast on the slopes above Lake Marjorie.  Now that I look at the map, maybe it was the shadow of Mount Pinchot; I’m not sure.  But it looked pretty cool that morning.

It was 7am when we arrived on the pass.  Once again, just like yesterday, we were the only fools to be up on the pass.  But this time it was shady, with a solid breeze blowing at us from the south.  Saddles and passes tend to be extra windy, due to the Venturi Effect, as the air has to speed up in the narrow spots while being slower in the wide areas to either side.  In other words, we didn’t stay long.  Just long enough to take the requisite photos and videos.  And then we were gone.

There were quite a few switchbacks on the way down to the basin below us.  We could see sunlight out there, and longed to feel it on our icy selves.  We’d probably be complaining about it later this afternoon, but right now we wanted to get warm.  There were a number of shallow ponds in a marshy region off to the left, but the trail missed them completely, and headed across a grassy zone to the right.  We were OK with that.  We could see the trail down below us.  In the sun.

We had a whopping eight miles of downhill cruising ahead of us, and four thousand feet of descent.  Hiking north to Pinchot Pass, like I did back in 2020 with my son and solo last year, was known to be a miserably long climb, that often felt like a Death March.  That’s why I broke it in two, by camping halfway up.  This time it wasn’t necessary.  We were going to whip it out in one long cruisey blast of hiking.

Along the way, we came upon several shallow tarns.  They were fishless, much to Keith’s dismay.  But one of them was populated by a swarm of slowly swimming insects, which I later realized were a species of Fairy Shrimp!  What a cool thing to find up here at 11000 feet!

I noticed on the topo maps that this high basin doesn’t even have a name.  That seems wrong, somehow.  The one south of Mather Pass was given the unimaginative name of “Upper Basin” so it would be difficult to do a worse job here.  I’ve been known to name things in the High Sierra, whether the Naming Authorities like it or not.  What should I call this one?  Hmmm…  How about Woods Basin, in keeping with the uber-lame naming scheme.  Twin Lakes Basin isn’t bad, since the Twin Lakes are at the lower end of it, but there are “Twin Lakes” everywhere.  Crater Basin or Wynne Basin would also work.  Decisions, decisions.  I suppose I could always take the eponymous route, and call it Bigfoot Basin, after my PCT trail name.  At least this name sounds good, poetically speaking, although naming it after myself is taking things much too far.  But I still insist that it needs a name.  On the map!

Once we dropped down into the Woods Creek Valley, the creek itself became a coherent waterway, after collecting all the diverse streamlets in the basin, above.  This was what Keith was waiting for.  When we arrived at the non-maintained Sawmill Pass Trail, we heard the creek nearby.  Keith immediately stopped to catch some trout.

This is also where Sabrina caught up to us.  She didn’t stop for long.  I told her that Dollar Lake would be a great spot to camp, except that some of the sites were closed for restoration, and if it didn’t look great, then she should hike a bit further to Arrowhead Lake.  And save us a spot!  I added unnecessarily as she blasted away down the trail.  She was seriously fast.

The valley got narrower, and the sides steeper.  Now the trail was heading downhill in earnest.  Much of the time, the creek was deep in a chasm below us, such that we couldn’t reach it to go fishing.  But when it gave us the chance, Keith was ready.  This area must have been subject to avalanches in Spring, because the trees were clumped in patches, in the places where avalanches wouldn’t take them out.  The best part about this section was that there was a lot of cascading whitewater, and several lovely waterfalls.

We hiked and hiked.  I remembered how hot it was last year when I arrived here in the late afternoon.  I almost got heat stroke.  That was a very long day.  We were much happier here, and we approached the low point relatively rapidly, in comparison to my pathetic uphill trudging.

On the final rush down to the bottom, Woods Creek flowed over granite slabs.  It was like a giant waterslide, one which would probably kill you if you attempted to brave it yourself.  But there were also some deep pools which the rushing water helped deepen.  Keith and I both knew that there had to be trout in there.  According to my JMT Trout Fishing Guide, there were Golden/Rainbow Hybrid Trout in Woods Creek.  We decided to put it to the test.  We set down our backpacks and scrambled down into the streambed.  It was an absolutely gorgeous place to do some fishing.  Keith caught several, and they looked more like Rainbows than Goldens, but that didn’t matter to him.  He released them after admiring their coloration, and after I took a photo for archival purposes.

It was only 11:30am, and we were almost done with the eight mile descent.  We decided to crank out the final mile to the bottom, and blasted right along,  Soon, we were at the low point, at the junction with the Rae Lakes Loop Trail out of Roads End in Kings Canyon.  That loop trail was very famous, and very popular.  We expected to see more hikers than ever, and we did.  Of course, people tend to congregate at cool spots like passes and bridges, and this was no exception.

Next stop:  The Woods Creek Suspension Bridge.  This is absolutely the coolest and best footbridge in the entire Sierra Nevada, hands down.  I told Keith to go first, since I’ve been there before.  The signs state that only one person should cross it at a time.  Not because it isn’t strong enough, but because it is such a light and airy bridge that it wobbles significantly when you cross it.  Underfoot is a steel catwalk, so that you can look right through it, directly down to the roaring waters below.  Fun!  I took videos of him crossing, and then me crossing.  That’s what I do.  And I did.  But I’ll only show one of them here.

It was almost exactly noon when we got to the southern end of the bridge.  This was a perfect time to eat lunch.  All we had ahead of us was a long uphill grind in the hot sun, so a big break was called for.  We sat down near the creek in the shade.  I filtered some water for the climb, and Keith waded out into the water and submerged himself, fully clothed.  I swear that he looked like one of his trout, wriggling in the current.  Once again, I declined to freeze my butt off.  I ate my lunch and read a book on my kindle, instead.

We still had 1800 feet to climb over almost five miles of hiking ahead of us, so we didn’t lounge by the creek forever.  When we were just about ready to head out, Keith went back into the water for one last dip.  He wanted his wet clothing to keep him cool on the big climb.  It was a good idea.  Too bad it only lasted a half hour or so!  It’s always dry in the Sierra, and the evaporation happened rapidly.  Soon, we were both sweating equally.

This time, the trail paralleled the South Fork of Woods Creek.  The water stayed away from us, down below in the bottom of the cleft.  After a mile or so, we passed through the region that was all avalanche trunks last year.  They fell during the Spring of 2023, the record snow year, and the park was so busy recovering from it that it took two years to deal with them.  Late last Summer, the trail crews cut them into pieces, and the trail was navigable again.  I was thankful for that.

Meanwhile, once again, the cumulus clouds were building up higher and higher.  The weather report gave us a 20% chance of rain, so we weren’t too worried.  The best thing that happened was that a cloud or two drifted by and blocked the sun while we were climbing.

We neared the outflow creek from the Sixty Lakes Basin, where there was a swampy section, and another creek crossing.  The water level was low enough by now that we were able to rock hop across with dry shoes.

The shade didn’t last long enough, but we kept on hiking.  We were making good time, according to my calculations.  I used “calculations” while looking at my Far Out mapping app as an excuse to take a short break.  I often did the same thing by taking photos.  Keith asked how things were going.  I told him that I wouldn’t be satisfied that we finished most of the climbing until I saw Fin Dome.  Then we would be within the Rae Lakes Basin.  Dollar Lake, our intended destination, was at the lower end of the basin.

We arrived at Dollar Lake.  Far Out had a “No Camping” symbol there.  I remembered eating lunch there last year, and doing some fly fishing.  It was a pretty lake.  We looked around to see if Sabrina was here, and for a decent campsite.  We were feeling pretty whupped by this point in the day.  But there was no Sabrina, and there was no decent campsite.  The signs said “Closed for Restoration” on the good spots.  So we did the only thing possible:  I got out Keith’s Tenkara Rod from the side pocket of his pack, and handed it to him.  Then he proceeded to do some fishing.  It was nice to take a fishing break after all that climbing, and Dollar Lake was quite lovely.

He didn’t fish for long, just enough to catch one or two.  What we really wanted was a proper campsite.  There would be plenty of time to fish later on.  So we continued walking.  Arrowhead Lake was about a mile further, with barely any climbing.  It was really pretty up here in the basin, with glaciated granite slabs, and slow-moving water in the South Fork Woods Creek.  We crossed the creek, and Keith was dying to fish there, but he resisted temptation.

We came up to the main campsite at Arrowhead Lake, and there was Sabrina!  She saved us two great spots in the best campsite on the lake.  Thanks, Sabrina!  We plopped down our backpacks, relieved that this long day was finally over.  All told, we had climbed 2900 feet and descended 3800 feet, over a distance of 13.8 miles.  That’s a solid day of hiking, by anyone’s standards.

There was a big old cumulus cloud building to the north, somewhere near Pinchot Pass and last night’s camp, but it was still sunny here.  I whipped out my big solar charger, and Keith and I charged our phones for a while.  That thing really worked well.  Meanwhile, Keith was wandering along the shore of the lake, finding choice spots to go fishing.  There were supposed to be both Brookies and Rainbows in this basin.  Sabrina and I hung out and watched him pull them in, one after another.

A short time later, about 5pm, the big cloud drifted overhead.  We heard a couple booms of distant thunder, but it wasn’t nearby.  Just the same, it got darker in camp, and then some rain began sprinkling.  It was barely enough to get you a tiny bit wet.  Just the same, I ran over and retrieved my solar panel and phone.  The wind picked up on the lake, gusting as if a storm were imminent, and it smelled like rain, but it didn’t really come to anything.  Sabrina said she got an InReach text from her partner who was in the thick of the storm back near Pinchot Pass.  Oh well.  I guess we lucked out with the weather that day.

Like most Sierra thundershowers, the clouds broke up as the sun went down.  The sun was the engine that drove the thermals that produced the clouds in the first place.  Tomorrow would probably be a repeat of today.  This is normal Summer weather up here.

We cooked our dinners and ate them together in the campground, with a view of Arrowhead Lake and Fin Dome across the way.  This was the Good Life, hanging out with friends in one of the prettiest places on Earth.

We talked about tomorrow’s plan.  Keith had enough food to get to Whitney, but I needed to resupply at Onion Valley.  Sabrina learned that her parents had booked her a motel room tomorrow night in Independence, the town down below Onion Valley.  She would rejoin the trail the following day, and meet up with her partner.  Keith and I were going to climb over both Glen Pass and Kearsarge Pass, then camp.  The next day I would snag the food and we would be on our way south once again.  It looked like our journey with Sabrina would be at an end.  But at least we had one more day to spend hiking together.

 

For a topographic map of the hike see my CalTopo Page

For LOTS more photos of the trek see my Flickr Page

 

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