John Muir Trail - Day Seventeen

Before we started the hike I made a tentative itinerary for the trip including one zero day just in case. So far we’d stuck to the schedule, but since I really wanted to spend a night at Rae Lakes I originally planned a 16-mile hike on our 4th day. With my cold moving into my lungs we decided to take advantage of that extra day in the schedule and split it up over two days.

Our morning started with a 1000’ climb over 2 miles to Pinchot Pass. The views were incredible going up – sheer mountains streaked with red volcanic rock and turquoise alpine lakes. Unfortunately, my lungs were burning and I was coughing up painful mucus so I took it slow with plenty of moments to catch my breath. I made it to the top of Pinchot Pass [161.0mi, 12130’] and told the others that I wanted to keep going to lower elevation for the sake of my lungs. We rolled over the pass and hiked until lunch.

The south side was filled with more turquoise lakes with trees sprinkled around. The lower elevation seemed to help me recover a bit. This section made me VERY happy we chose to hike southbound! The downhill was steep and relentless and we ran into a lot of tired looking northbound hikers. We met for lunch at the Sawmill Pass Junction [164.7mi, 10350’] and I was pleasantly surprised that we were already halfway down from Pinchot. I felt pretty decent knowing we were only 3.7 miles from camp.

The next section was spectacular – one of my favorites on the JMT. The trail followed alongside Woods Creek as it wound around a narrow valley and finally descended into a forest marking the Junction [168.4mi, 8510’]. We crossed a sketchy suspension bridge down the JMT to plentiful campsites along the river. We chose a nice spot right above a river bend.

A recovery drink followed by a bath in the creek helped me quite a bit. I washed my clothes and chugged some water before taking a quick nap. We had a few extra hours to lounge around since our hike was shorter. We had a leisurely dinner and I took some painkillers to help me sleep through my sore throat. I went to sleep feeling pretty bad physically and was really worried about our climb up to Rae Lakes the following day. I was cautiously hopeful that the lower elevation would help me recover.