John Muir Trail - Day Two

Day two was a tough day physically as we continued to acclimate to the elevation and mileage, combined with the lack of sleep from Purple 6’s visits. We got a fairly slow start making breakfast, packing up camp, and filtering water on the way out.

The beginning of the hike was a gradual climb through a forest burned by the Meadow Fire (2014) which was an interesting change of pace although it was sad to see such mass destruction from a single event. As we climbed higher we had nice views back to Half Dome. The trail steepened and turned into tiring switchbacks. We planned to stop for lunch at the Sunrise High Sierra Camp but did not anticipate how far away that was! After a massive climb and an equally steep downhill run we finally came to a gorgeous open meadow leading to the Camp [13.5 mi, 9333’]. It might’ve been nice to plan to camp at or near Sunrise because their dinner menu sounded incredible, plus they had a water faucet and decent pit toilets. We spent over an hour resting from an already long day of hiking, enjoying a break with our shoes off and a good supply of running water. The extended lunch break did wonders for my energy level!

The JMT continued around the meadow and back up another long gradual slope until we reached the top of Cathedral Pass [16.6 mi, 9700’] with sweeping views towards Tuolumne and Cathedral Peak. I lost count of how many times I said “wow” to myself during this section, despite how hard it felt. We descended past Upper Cathedral Lake which didn’t seem to have many campsite options but was scenic and right off the trail. We finally made it to the junction trail down to Lower Cathedral Lake [17.7 mi, 9430’] when I felt like I couldn’t walk any further. It was another 1/4 mile to the reah the lake. The lake itself was much bigger than I expected and we walked around to the north shore to find a campsite. There were a lot of options but also a lot of people already setup. This was one of the more crowded campsites we came across on the JMT. We managed to find a nice site an acceptable distance from the water and even had some time to bathe in the lake, “do laundry”, and take in the gorgeous lake reflections of the peaks around us. Jason and I walked a little ways up above the lake and watched the sunset while enjoying hot risotto and a mini bottle of wine. What a way to end a long day of hiking!

I went to bed with my body aching everywhere, but very proud of our accomplishments on just our second day. However, we were all still a little on edge from our first night on the trail with Purple 6. At one point someone called out “BEAR!” when some leaves rustled and a few hikers jumped out of their tents only to find a confused deer.