August 17-It doesn't Mather...or does it?

Miles Hiked: 13.53  Total: 166.33
Elevation Gain: 4046 ft

“God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons.” ~John Muir 

SON OF THE WILDERNESS - pub. 1945

[John]

We climbed the Golden Staircase in the morning, passing by Karen and her “kids,” who had camped a bit up trail from us along the way. It was reunion time, as Toshio and Masao also slid up behind us as we labored up the Staircase switchbacks, and all 8 of us enjoyed a water break near the top a bit later.

Looking back...hiking toward Mather Pas

I remember reading about how long it took to construct the Golden Staircase in Hal Roth’s Pathway in the Sky: The Story of the John Muir Trail and could see why. It was essentially a sheer rock face out which switchbacks were eventually dynamited and pieced together. I could not imagine bringing a team of pack animals down this thing!

After the Staircase and Lower Palisade Lake, we stopped for lunch and to soak our tired feet, after which I had a little scare. Christi had started off before me and I missed about a quarter mile of the trail when I left. After locating the trail, walking another half mile or so and not encountering her, I doubled back along the trail to where we had lunch. No Christi! I began wondering if she had drifted off trail somewhere but could not see her anywhere in site.

Fortunately, I found her about 15 minutes later, waiting further up trail for me. We agreed to keep each other in site after that, or at least not let 5 minutes go by without locating the other person.

Switchbacks coming down Mather Pass

We reached the summit of Mather Pass around 4 PM that afternoon. The snow and boulders near the top were somewhat testy, freaking Christi a bit (despite that wonderful “training” she had had amongst the huge boulders below Donohue Pass several days earlier!).

My feet slowed me down a bit – I hadn’t worn my Injinji liners and let my feet get wet, so was developing some delightful blisters on a couple of my toes – but we made it down to the South Fork Kings River camp area before setting up camp for the night.  

[Christi]
Ugh! Eight hours and 8 miles later, we finally get to the top of Mather Pass.  It was already a really hard climb just getting up the Golden Staircase to the Pass itself. It still had snow on it so we were left with scrambling up snow fields and large granite rocks since the trail was under snow. This one really shook me up. I was way out of my comfort zone, for sure.

We made it to the top around 4 PM and then finally to camp by 7 PM...almost dark. Well and truly, pooped!

John has developed many blisters on both feet now. I'm not sure how we'll deal with this since we still have a way to go to get to the end.

Too tired to ponder the possibilities. Sleep awaits.