Sally got to Mammoth last night, Sunday night, about 9:30 pm and had to catch the bus back to Yosemite Valley at 8:00 am Tuesday morning. If I was going to get the chance to see her, I would have to get to Mammoth today, Monday. We studied our maps and estimated the distance to Mammoth. We had about 4 miles of cross country work to do. After that we had a mile of trail down Fish Creek until it intersected the John Muir Trail, then six miles of the JMT from Tullys Hole to Duck Lake. Then it got sketchy. We did not have a way of finding the distance from the JMT-Duck Lake intersection to the Duck Lake trailhead. By comparing known distances on the map to this unknown, we figured it to be an additional six to eight miles. Total miles to cover: 16 or 18 miles. No problem! I did 20's two years ago on the PCT, and we just had a zero day the day before yesterday. We can do this!!
Motivated, we were up at 5:45 am. A hot breakfast of rice, a variety of nuts, milk and nutmeg, courtesy of Dave and we were off. First order of business was a boulder and slab upward traverse of the basin between Buckhorn Pass and Shout of Relief Pass. The guide book said it would take about an hour. We did it in 40 minutes. There was a lot of ups and downs to avoid cliffs and work around other obstacles, but we were now ready to descend from Shout of Relief Pass. There was scree, boulders, slabs, meadows-the usual, and soon we were traversing around the end of the ridge, heading for Izzak Walton Lake.
At the lake, we decided to take a break and fish. We moved down the side of the lake, south to north, fishing with our packs on. We caught four, placed them in the designated fish bag, and after 45 minutes, began the mile and a half cross country run down to the Fish Lake trail. Our estimate was pretty good, as the GPS clocked us at four miles to the trail. Once on the trail we could move faster and soon hit the JMT. We had a 900' climb out of Tullys Hole up to Virginia Lake over a distance of two miles. We had lunch at Virginia Lake, then continued on. We made the Duck Lake/JMT intersection by 3:00 pm. We climbed up the 300 or so feet to Duck Lake then began the traversing climb up to Duck Pass at the far end of the lake.
We were getting a little concerned. I was sure we would have cell service during the day due to our proximity to Mammoth Mountain ski resort. Granted, it was only 4 or 5 miles away, the the intervening ridges blocked the signal. I had told Sally we would contact them during the day to let her know if our progress. Here it was 3:30 pm and we had not had signal all day. It made me realize what a fortunate fluke Bighorn Pass really is.
As soon as we crossed into Duck Pass, at about 4:00 pm, we could see the ski lifts of Mammoth Mountain and our phones lit up with four bars of service. We quickly called Sally and Barb to apprise them of our situation. We didn't know how long the trail from Duck Pass to the trail head was, but we guessed six miles. It was 4:00 pm, so we told them 6:00 pm was a good time to plan on. We figured we would have cell service all the way down the trail and could let them know if our eta changed. We also had the ladies get hotel rooms in Mammoth for the night. I had not had a shower for 18 days and figured Sally might be repulsed by my odor.
With the cell service I also got a text from Mike Morgan, a friend and fellow teacher (retired like me) of 30+ years. His 39 year son, Jake, and Jake's daughter, Helen, had been at the Lewis County Fair 11 days ago, enjoying a day of play when an unattended horse, harnessed to a carriage, spooked and ran down the midway, trampling Jake and Helen. Both were air lifted to Harbor View Hospital in Seattle and put in Critical Care. This had been eleven days ago. Mike texted me to let me know they were in the hospital with Jake and if I called I could talk to him. I did, and we had a good conversation as I hustled down the trail to my rendezvous with Sally.
Along the way, we passed a group camping just off the trail. We asked how far it was to the trailhead. They said two miles, a welcome number! I texted Sally to let her know we would be at the trailhead in 45 minutes.
Our timing was perfect. They drove into the parking lot just as we exited the trail. We drove to the hotel. Our room was a "PCT" grade $70 room, small, funky and cheap. But, it did have a shower!! After cleaning up, Sally gave me some of her clothes to wear and we walked down to Craig and Barb's room. I looked ridiculous, and Barb loaned me some of Craig's clean clothes out of their van.
We walked to dinner at Sloccum's, then retired for the night. It was great to see Sally!!
Craig and I were right-it was better sleeping next to our wives than each other.
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