JMT Hiking Day #9 (Trail Day #15). Muir Trail Ranch to McClure Meadow. August 19, 2014

**About 11.5 miles with approximately 1800 feet of elevation gain.

Nothing better prepares you for a nine or ten day hike in the wilderness than a giant breakfast of chocolate-chip pancakes and maple sausage.  Muir Trail Ranch's cooks are nothing short of amazing.

The girls and I ate heartily, said goodbye to Don and Debbie (who were leaving the same day, but an hour or so later), spoke a while with Bobby and Melissa (who had arrived the night before and, I thought, were staying another evening), and headed into the lounge to pat Honey one final time.

Honey, the Muir Trail Ranch cat.  Photo taken by Alex

After the girls took another few photos of Honey, we hit the trail.  My pack was 42 pounds and I carried an additional 8 pounds in my arms (Ursack).  I gritted my teeth and reminded myself that we would eat through the weight after a day or two of hiking.  All this food would get us to our resupply rendezvous on Aug. 25.  The plan was to meet Sequoia Kings Pack Trains on the trail a couple of days from Whitney to receive our mailed food.  They did meet us as planned, but I have mixed feelings about their service...more on that later, when I've gotten to that portion of our trip.

Alex, Sage, and I agreed to take only two or three photos per day from this point forward.  There are no places to charge batteries between Muir Trail Ranch and Whitney, so we couldn't take all the images we wanted without risking losing our camera capabilities before the end of our hike.  It's a pity, because the scenery every day, in almost every location, was drop-dead gorgeous.  We did the best we could...between our blog and all the other JMT blogs out there, you should be able to get an idea of what the southern portion of the JMT looks like.

The first 3.2 miles out of Muir Trail Ranch felt rather flat.  The trail leads you through beautiful meadows and underneath gorgeous Jeffrey pines.

After crossing a steel footbridge and entering Kings Canyon National Park (where there are plenty of campsites), we hiked another few flat-ish miles before ascending a mile and a half's worth of switchbacks.  Ordinarily, those switchbacks probably wouldn't have seemed like a big deal, but my pack was heavy from the extra food.  This part of the day, therefore, wasn't much fun for me.

Evolution Creek was low, so we had no problems crossing it.  We removed our shoes and waded through the slow-moving water -- even on the girls, the water didn't come up past our calves.  I have heard this creek can cause problems in high-water seasons, and there are signs by each bank advising hikers not to cross if the water is high and fast-moving.  We had no issues, though.

After a couple more miles of gently uphill trekking, we reached McClure Meadow.

Our goal for the evening was to camp close to the Ranger Station, so we began looking for a place to pitch our tent immediately after passing the Station on our left (the cabin is up from the trail a bit, on a hill...you can see bits of it from the trail if you're keeping an eye out).  Soon after crossing a little stream, we saw a herd path leading to our right.  We found a perfect camping spot not far from the trail, right by the meadow.

Photo taken by Sage

We were first at the spot, since it was only 1:45.  We weren't tired, but our guidebook stated there were no other places to camp for the next 10 miles.  I didn't want to schlep all that food any farther, so we settled in and ate as much as we could manage.

The skies grew overcast and thunder rumbled in the distance...other hikers began showing up and tents were pitched every which way.  No one wanted to continue with the threat of lightning, so our secluded area became a temporary tent city.  It was nice to have so much company, actually -- we met a nice fellow named Keith, a guy named Larry, and a slew of other folks whose names all now escape me (sorry!).  Bobby and Melissa arrived an hour or so before nightfall -- I didn't expect to see them because I had mistakenly thought they were staying at Muir Trail Ranch another night.  Everyone hung about within the trees and watched the sky.  It rained for about half a second at one point, but most of the storm passed us by.  This would be the last time we would see so many hikers in such a small area until we reached Guitar Lake on the 26th.

The girls played their usual game of cards and wrote in their journals (I had extra paper in my resupply, so Alex and Sage began writing down their own impressions of their journey).  It got dark, we went to sleep...and the next day, we hiked through Evolution Basin and over Muir Pass.  Those details will be included in the next entry, which I intend to post by Wednesday evening (Nov. 5).