Trail Day 47: Tentsite (mile 755.1) to John Muir Trail tentsite (mile 1.9 of JMT trail to Mt. Whitney)

11.9 PCT miles and 1.9 JMT miles

Brrr, it was cold this morning! I set my alarm early to practice getting up, which is what I will need to do once I hit the snowy areas. However, when my alarm went off, I just reset it. Then, when I decided I needed to get up, I just laid in my sleeping bag for at least 30 minutes.

Eventually,  I started back on the trail, stopping first to fill up with water, then walking along a long saddle. Whereas yesterday I was walking towards the snowy peaks, today it seemed as if the snowy peaks were all around me.

Snowy peak and mountain meadow. 

The trail lead downhill for a couple miles towards Rock Creek, which was reported to be the first difficult water crossing of the Sierra. Even a mile or two up from it I could hear the rushing water of the valley.

While making my way towards the creek, I passed some beautiful meadows as well as some seasonal streams that presented their own crossing issues. One of them literally had a waterfall gushing onto the trail that I had to scramble around.

There is not supposed to be a stream here. This is supposed to be the trail.

Meadow crossing before Rock Creek.

When I got to the Rock Creek area there was a sign from the ranger about hazardous creek crossings and to cross downstream from the ranger station instead.

Rock Creek Ranger warning.

The problem with this was that I was not sure exactly where to cross. There were cairns by a meadow crossing, but there were also logs upstream where other PCT hikers had reported crossing. I know that high altitude meadows are sensitive to disturbance, so I chose the logs.

The cairn marking the crossing.

The log crossings. This angle makes them look worse than they were. Sorry, Mom.

As scary as the logs looked,  they were easy to cross. After the logs I apparently still needed to stomp my way across the marshy meadow to get back to where the PCT was.

Even after I had crossed the meadow I still needed to follow the creek to where the official crossing was. Both the meadow and the surrounding mountains were practically leaking into the Rock Creek drainage which made it impossible to keep my feet dry as I was working my way around it. It also turned the creek into a whitewater torrent.

Raging waterfall downstream of the meadow.

Rock Creek downstream of the meadow.

Rock Creek at the official PCT crossing.

I finally reached the PCT again, dried off for a while, then started climbing uphill to my next water crossing, Guyot Creek, which I reached in about a mile.

For this creek, previous PCT hikers had crossed on snow bridges. There was absolutely no snow left. Luckily, the creek wasn't very wide and there were plenty of log and rock crossings to chose from. I picked the one I felt most confident crossing and didn't even get my feet wet.

Guyot Creek at the official crossing.

Rocks and logs just upstream in Guyot Creek.

After this I started crossing a saddle again. While on the saddle, I stopped to eat lunch. That is when I heard a clicking noise behind me. It was the Rock Creek ranger doing her ranging. We chatted for awhile and I asked her about life as a backcountry ranger (e.g. how long do they spend at the station, how do they get food out there) and also specific questions about upcoming parts of the trail. She asked me questions such as if I was a PCT thu-hiker and how I was enjoying the trail.  At the end of the conversation she asked to record my name and where I was from, “just in case I need to say I have seen you.” That didn't sound ominous…

After that, I continued up and down the trail. On another saddle I started to get passed by other hikers. Finally! I was wondering where they all were. I spoke briefly with a man named Songbeard who was travelling with a very large group of peoplr. I kind of explained my situation of coming back on the trail and not knowing anyone. He offered that if the group was around they would help me out with some of the difficult stuff yet to come.

View from the saddle into a valley below.

Unfortunately,  that group hiked way faster than I did. They were not doing a lot of miles,  but they all walked together in one group, and did so at a fast pace. I don't think I could keep up if I tried.

I happened to be near them for the final water crossing if the day,  Whitney Creek. I followed them across, but it was the easiest cross of the day. It was wide, not too deep, and not too fast.  We all dried off for a while before I quizzed Songbeard about his itinerary for the next few days. I was going to imitate it and hopefully have people around for the upcoming fords and passes. I definitely wanted people around for Forester Pass.

The meadow just upstream of the Whitney Creek Crossing.

I left the group and continued towards my campsite for the night. All of the PCT thru-hikers were going to take a detour on the John Muir Trail in order to summit Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in the contiguous United States. I had paid extra for a permit that allowed me to camp on the Whitney Zone, so I was going to do the very first part of the climb tonight, then do the rest early in the morning tomorrow.

On my way to the campsite, I bumped into a bunch of other hikers. Some were PCT hikers,  some were JMT (John Muir Trail ) hikers, and some were just summiting Mt. Whitney. I got great trail reports and also found out that everybody  (including Songbeard’s group) would be on the trail at similar times tomorrow, which made me feel pretty good.

Whitney Creek from the John Muir Trail.

The John Muir Trail.

I found a beautiful spot off the trail to pitch my tent and ate dinner while the setting sun lit up everything around me.

Golden hour at my campsite.

My camping spot for the night.