John Muir Trail Day 20: The Battle of the Many Unnamed Passes and Why Are We Doing This?

When I surfaced out of sleep and into the dawn of Day 20 on the John Muir Trail, I realized just how mentally and physically done I was the day before. My feet were back to being problematic with weird, roving pain, but nothing could distract me from just how beautiful the morning was at yet another stunning campsite we had all to ourselves.  

My husband and hiking partner Cliff and I were a stone’s throw from the Fish Creek Footbridge, nestled under a massive evergreen tree. It was a dream landscape and one we didn’t want to leave behind. Looking at the map, we gazed wistfully at all the smaller trails branching off of the JMT and wished we had time to explore each side quest at length.

As we ate breakfast, Cliff pointed out that we had passed right by several figurative milestones: It was now September 2nd which meant we were in a new month on the trail, hiking from summer into fall. As NOBO hikers, we were in the single digits of our NatGeo JMT map book, as we worked our way from the back of the book to the front, and, most importantly, we had a little less than 80 miles left to hike on this adventure.

We broke down camp and tugged our backpacks on, thinking about these accomplishments, acknowledging silently that, although our bodies hurt and our minds were tired, nothing could stop us from arriving at the end of this adventure, though many things would try.

The start of our hike for the day took us over the Fish Creek Footbridge and onto a delightful stretch of fairly flat footpath before starting the day’s first of many ascents. Starting at Tully Hole, the trail climbed 1,243’ upwards for 2.5 miles. Until this day, I had done, at the most, two mountain passes in a 24-hour stretch and had announced with a snarl brought on by dehydration, a lack of calories and having to smell my own rotting armpits for far too long that I would never be doing that again. I added a verbally violent THE END just in case the Universe and John Muir had not taken notes. I might’ve jabbed my finger in the air for emphasis because my god, let’s not do that again.

The trail, of course, answered with a smirk as it dropped us several hundred feet in elevation over another mile and then started to climb again.  

Over ten miles, the trail roller coastered up and over four nameless 10,000’ foot passes as we lost and gained a comical amount of elevation. 

At some mentally hazy point in time on this day, I stopped for a break, relying on my trekking poles to keep me upright as I draped myself heavily over them, breathing so very hard. The JMT was yet again taking the long way around the Sierra Nevada mountain range and I reminded myself that this was the purpose of one of the most beautiful trails ever to be hiked. The point was never to hurry up and get it done so I could cross this adventure off a list and crow about my accomplishment to a bunch of internet strangers. The JMT deserved to be on every Bucket List and equally excluded from every superficial Brag List. 

Get your mind right, I yelled to myself, or you’re going to let the entire purpose of this adventure pass you right by. How fucking tragic would that be to miss the whole point of the adventurous life because you failed to see life happening all around you in this vast adventure? 

I pushed off my hiking poles and set off, finally seeing beyond the pain in my body and the exhaustion trying to settle into my mind.

This mentally and physically defeating kind of a hiking day wound up being saved simply by the consistency of the trail being almost…fluffy. It was that good old Sierra Nevada dusty dirt with very few rocks anywhere to be seen and it came to us when we needed it the most.  

Because of the almost near lack of rocks, I was able to look up and around me without the constant threat of twisting or tripping hazards. Our feet, feeling so tenderized from hiking on rocks for much of the past 20 days, finally got the break they deserved, and because of this, I was able to finally move fast. It was such a rarity that we began to crank out the miles and I started to feel better as we hiked into the late afternoon.

With 12.9 miles down, we arrived at Deer Creek Camp and were almost hesitant to stop, having found our groove and ready to jam some more miles into the day. In hindsight, we should have moved on once we realized this was a heavily-used campground for not only JMT and Pacific Crest Trail hikers but also those from the Mammoth Lakes, Devil’s Postpile and Red’s Meadow crowd. 

Numb with exhaustion, we set up camp, made dinner and randomly decided over a shared bowl of noodles that we would be hiking into Mammoth Lakes for a much needed Nero Day. The decision surprised us both since we had no plans of doing so until that minute but the mere thought had us feeling revived and resting easier that night.

Watching the stars through our open tent that night, I reassured myself that we would spend only one night in Mammoth Lakes and then be right back on the trail again the next morning. 

…or so I thought.

Stats for the Hiker Nerds (Like You and I)

Day 20- September 5, 2024 

Fish Creek Camp to Deer Creek Meadow

Mountain Pass/Summit: #1- 10,453’   #2- 10,500’   #3- 10,476’  #4- 10,219’

Elevation Gain: 2,344’

Elevation Loss: 2,432’

Mileage: 12.9

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