From JMT mile 175.7 to 180.3 Total: 14.0 miles hiked 8/17
On the nineteenth day of my John Muir Trail trek I picked up my resupply at Onion Valley, returned to my campsite at Flower Lake, hiked over Kearsarge Pass, rejoined the JMT, and hiked south along Bubbs Creek, in order to camp within striking distance of Forester Pass.
I decided to wake up even earlier than usual on this day. I packed up most of my heavier gear and left it in my tent. I put only the essentials in my backpack, along with Keith’s trash bag, and began my “slackpack” hike down the hill to Onion Valley. Three weeks ago, I left a four day food resupply in a bear box at the trailhead. With luck, it would still be there. This would be enough food to get me up and over Mount Whitney, and eventually to my car.
It was barely first light when I left camp, just after 5am. My phone’s camera makes it look a lot lighter than it actually was. I had my headlamp on for quite a while. I had about 1300 feet to descend over two and a half miles, and I planned to hike quite fast, now that I was carrying almost nothing. Keith’s job was to hang out and wait, and hopefully catch some trout. His day was going to be a lot easier than mine.
I passed by Gilbert Lake, the talus field, then descended past Little Pothole Lake. There was nobody on the trail, even though it was a Sunday. The true early bird dayhikers were still eating breakfast in town.
Eventually, I could see the parking lot down below. It was quite full of cars, and I’ll bet that almost all of them were backpackers. This gave my feet some new energy. Meanwhile, the sun hadn’t yet risen above the Inyo Mountains across the way. The rays finally hit me as I arrived at the trailhead.
It took me about an hour and a half to make the descent, then another 15 minutes to deal with my resupply and throw out the trash. I left myself an extra can of sugary soda and I sucked it down right there. It wasn’t coming back up the hill with me! And then I was gone, hiking much more slowly this time, trudging uphill now. It was 6:30am and the clock was ticking. My pack was heaver, too.
I took a bit longer going up, not only because it was up, but also because I paused at the talus pile near Gilbert Lake. This spot was known to have good cell signal. I called Vicki and yakked with her for a while. I spoke with her yesterday afternoon, but I didn’t mind doing it again. I also got on the internet and booked a motel room down in Lone Pine for the day we were finished. This took longer than I wanted, but I was glad to have it. Then I continued on to our campsite at Flower Lake. When I arrived and told Keith he was annoyed with himself that he didn’t spend those hours calling his kids, as well as his wife. Can’t change that now. I quickly finished packing my tent and gear. The new food supply went directly into the bear canister.
Before we left, we both topped off our water containers. We had a hot 1300 feet to climb in the next two and a half miles. I know, because I’ve hiked it plenty of times. The good thing was that Flower Lake was at the halfway point to the pass from the parking lot, so I didn’t have that much left to climb. Or so I told myself, ignoring the five miles I already did that morning.
Both of us were much stronger hikers, now that we’d been hiking for 180 miles. Maybe we were getting our “Hiking Legs” already. PCT hikers become Hiking Machines after about 200 miles or so, and the JMT was just long enough to let you get to that awesome fitness level, and then it was over. We were doomed to head back to the sofa and the inevitable muscle degradation it causes. Sad but true.
We were feeling pretty strong that day, and for once it wasn’t too hot on the final long switchback to the pass. In fact, we arrived there about 10:30am, and we left camp at 9am, which was pretty good time. It helped that there was a nice cool breeze as we climbed. We arrived on the summit with a bit more water than we needed. That’s life, and much better than being dehydrated.
Up on the pass, I pointed out our route to Keith. First stop was the nearest of the Kearsarge Lakes. There were several, but we didn’t have time to fish them all. He was fine with that. The idea was not to miss a spot, and not get shut out when you got there. We made a left at the trail junction, onto the Bullfrog Lake Trail, and shortly after that made another left on the Kearsarge Lakes side trail.
It was 11:30am when we arrived at the lake. By this time the breeze was blowing decently, and we couldn’t see the rings where the trout were rising. If you waited, you could see them jump. Keith refreshed his line with a new fly, then bagged a bunch of Brookies, one after the other, as he made his way along the shore. He let them go afterward. We didn’t cook a single trout the whole trip, but he must’ve caught hundreds along the way.
We didn’t stay too long. I filtered a couple more liters of water while he fished, and then we hiked onward. Bullfrog Lake was next, and it also had Brook Trout. According to my trusty JMT Trout Fishing Guide, at any rate. There was no camping next to this lake, as it got over-camped in the past. Now it was prefect for fishing.
It was about 12:30pm when we left the trail to head for the shore of the lake. I told Keith that I was going to eat my lunchtime Pop-Tart. I enjoyed it, considering that I carried it all the way here from MTR. It was the only food left in my bear can this morning. Keith, meanwhile, caught a really nice sized Brook Trout. Vicki would have eaten it in a heartbeat if she was here with us.
Bullfrog Lake was quite large. We took the fisherman’s path along the shore and back to the main trail. It curved around the lake, and the views were excellent.
There were a couple of shallow, fishless ponds not far from Bullfrog Lake. People were allowed to camp nearby, but everyone was already hiking at this time of day. We joined back up with the John Muir Trail. We missed hiking a little over a half mile of it by taking the two trails to Kearsarge Pass. I hiked it once with Vicki, back in 2019, and it wasn’t anything worth worrying about. Hiking both trails to the pass was a better trade. The trail signs at the junction were amusing. Hikers had changed the arrows around, as if Kings Canyon National Park had no idea what they were talking about. Maybe they didn’t!
The next mile or so consisted of heading downhill via numerous switchbacks to the bottom of the Bubbs Creek Valley, at Vidette Meadow. There were fine views looking up-canyon toward Center Peak. That’s the way we would be hiking very soon. It was a long, forested canyon with a creek running down it. A creek full of trout, of course. Forester Pass, at 13,200 feet elevation, was somewhere at the far end of that canyon. We would climb that tomorrow. For now, though, it was time to head downward, so that we could climb upward again. Welcome to the JMT!
The bottom was the junction where the JMT and PCT headed south, and the Rae Lakes Loop headed west. Both followed Bubbs Creek. My fishing guide claimed that there might be Brown Trout downstream near lower Vidette Meadow. We decided to take a short detour in the wrong direction, just because we could. We found a lovely grassy meadow and hiked across it. We set down our packs and Keith began to sneak up on the unwary trout. He tried and tried, but didn’t catch a Brown. Eventually, he gave up. We needed to keep on hiking if we were ever going to find a campsite.
We had just dropped 900 feet, and now we were about to climb 900 feet. At least the climb was spread out further, so the slope was mellow, and the trail was very cruisey. Mostly we hiked through a pleasant pine forest, but fairly often the cascading waters of the creek drew near. That’s when I took more photos and videos, so it looks like we spent most of the time near water. Not so. But we still enjoyed it.
As the afternoon waned, we met up with our old buddy Chris yet again (I camped next to him on my very first day on the trail). This was probably the fifth time we met. He was hanging out with two other hikers, and they were taking turns dipping themselves in the creek. It was the perfect time of day to do it, too. I knew that this was giving Keith ideas; fly fishing and bathing in ice water were two of his favorite past times. But both of us really wanted to find a campsite first. We hiked on.
The Far Out app showed two campsites up ahead of us. When we got there, the first one was crowded, and not that attractive. We kept on hiking. Before we got to the second one, Keith spotted an obvious tentsite not far from the creek. Just because it isn’t in Far Out doesn’t mean it isn’t a viable campsite.
We decided that this one was perfect. We each picked a flattish spot and set up our tents. Then it was time to filter some water. It was only 4pm, and we had the rest of the day to simply hang out and relax.
I did the usual water filtering chore. It wasn’t that hard, as I let gravity do all the work while I read my kindle in the shade near the creek. Keith finally got his wish, and got serious about taking that bath. There was a perfect pool right near camp, and he went right in. Was it icy? Of course it was icy. Did he care? No, he didn’t care. He loved it!
Later on, he strung up his clothesline, and I decided to try washing my dusty outer shirt. We hung up our stuff in the sun to dry, and there was a steady breeze to help it along. Keith also did some fly fishing, of course, and caught some more Goldens this time.
Once the sun sank behind the western rim of the canyon, we got into our night clothes and took in the laundry. Then it was dinner time. We hung out and ate, and talked about tomorrow.
Neither one of us could believe that in a mere three days we would be on top of Mount Whitney. And tomorrow was the highest pass on either the JMT or the PCT: Forester Pass. At 13200 feet, it was a beast. Even after all of today’s hiking up the creek, we still had 2700 feet to climb tomorrow morning. That’s a big climb in anybody’s book. Today I hiked about 14 miles, and Keith about 9. Tomorrow would be a shorter day, at about ten miles total. The pass is what made it tougher. But that was fine with us. Our plan, as always, was to get up early and get the climbing out of the way while it was cool. So we set our alarms and headed off to bed, with the sound of the creek in our ears.
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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