Monday, August 22, 2016 - Rain

It took a few years of coming to the Sierra to recondition myself to its weather patterns after a life time of trying to divine Washington mountain weather. California mountain weather could not be more different than Washington mountain weather. It is sunny all the time in California. If it does rain, it comes in the afternoon as a thunderstorm, announcing  its intentions long before the rain comes by building gigantic castles of clouds in the sky, massive thunderheads. Every morning the sky is clear. If puffy clouds start appearing by 10:00 am, then it is quite certain it will be raining between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm. If the puffies don't start showing until noon or 1:00 pm, no chance of rain. The clouds don't have time to build into thunderheads. 

This morning we awoke at 6:00 am to cloudy skies!  This is unheard of!  If the weather held true to its patterns, it should be raining by noon. 

We ate a breakfast of the remainder of the monkey bread from Shatz bakery and hot tea, packed up the tent and gear and headed for Knapsack Pass, leaving camp about 7:00 am. We stopped to fish the lake from its north shore, but didn't get a bite. 

Our route led us over Knapsack Pass and down to the small but picturesque lakes of Dusy Basin, 700' below. Obtaining Knapsack Pass is a little tricky. It is steep and is a combination of loose boulders and rock and granite slabs. We negotiated the obstacles and were soon descending the north side toward Dusy Basin. The clouds were letting the sun peek through for most of the descent to Dusy Basin, but they sealed the sky shut after that. 

Barrett Lake is at 11,500' as is Knapsack Pass. Our destination was  down to the Middle Fork of the Kings River at 8700', before beginning our climb to Muir Pass. This 2700' descent occurred in two phases, about 750' was lost from Knapsack Pass to Dusy basin while traveling cross country, then the remaining 1950' while hiking down the Bishop Pass trail to its intersection with the John Muir Trail. It took us until about 11:00 am to descend to the JMT intersection. We headed north on the JMT, the sky already booming with thunder and flashing with lightning. My goal was to get us to the campsites of Big Pete Meadow before the rain, now visible up the valley, worked its way down to us. We hoofed it as fast as we could, passing up dry campsites at Little Pete Meadow in hopes of gaining another mile and a half today meaning less climbing tomorrow. 

We didn't make it. 

It started raining in earnest while we were still 0.4 mile from our destination. We put on our raincoats and packs covers and scurried on. We reached a flat piece of ground and quickly erected our tarp. Once under it, we arranged our sleeping situations, climbed in our sleeping bags, and each took a three hour nap. 

When we were pitching the tent we noticed a use trail going off toward the river, but in our haste to get out of the rain, neither of us explored where it went. As we were waking from our naps, we noticed people going in and out on that trail. We later discovered that the guided couple from Hong Kong had their encampment there.  People were coming in and out. Our tarp was like having a ghetto just outside their "glamping" area. 

The rain quit about 3:30 pm. We got out from under the tent to attend to business and get a little charging with the solar panel done now that the clouds had thinned and a little sunlight was coming through. 

In the evening, as we lay in our sleeping bags under our tarp, we recognized Barb, from the day before, exiting along the trail. We caught her attention and chatted with her a few minutes. She said they had fresh chicken, asparagus and other delicacies for dinner, and a camp fire and their clients would be hiking toward Muir Pass at 7:00 am. 

Now 7:30 pm, we rolled over to sleep.