“Be glad it happened, not sad it's ending.”
This morning we started the last leg of this adventure. We packed four days of food, but I think we will do this last part in three days. We are up and out by 6:45 am after Craig has a breakfast of oatmeal and almonds and I eat my ReNola, a nut based granola. Yummy!
There were a lot of people in the backpackers campground last night, and most are up and moving by the time we walk down the hill and out to the highway, heading east. For the first mile or so we are back on the horse highway, ankle deep in dust. But, right before the Tuolumne High Sierra Camp we cross the river and where the horses turn right to go to Vogelsang, we turn left and head up the trail that parallels the highway towards Gaylor Lakes. It was super cold at the backpacker’s campground, but now that we have climbed a little out of the meadow, the temperature is warming and we remove fleece and hats. We cross the highway, angling northeast on the trail, although the trail will end soon and we will walk across the meadows above lower Gaylor Lakes to the upper Gaylor Lakes. At one point I drift too far left and get us snarled in the willows that line the area around a now dry stream bed, but a correction to the right and we are back in open meadow. The sun is bright, the sky blue, not a cloud in the sky as we pickup the trail to upper Gaylor Lakes that comes from Tioga Pass. As we walk by the first Gaylor Lake we decide to answer the question of this trip, “I wonder if there are any fish in that lake?”
It only took about 20-30 minutes to land 4 10-11 inch Golden Trout for dinner. A retired man named Phil stopped to chat while we were fishing. Kind man from Grass Valley up by Tahoe out for a few days of day hiking.
After cleaning them, we sat down for lunch. Up the hill after lunch we came upon the “Great Sierra Silver Mine” left over from late last century, a collection of rock walls that used to support timber frame roofs and mine shafts. We headed north, traversing downward toward Green Treble Lake for the night.
When we arrived at the lake we rested for a few minutes, then Craig went down for a swim. I joined him a few minutes later and washed my legs, soaked my feet and generally cleaned up a bit.
Fish, rice and chicken for dinner. The stars were particularly bright tonight, which is saying something, because they are amazing every night.
With the distance we made today, we will finish the day after tomorrow, a bittersweet thought. Living out here is so amazing, yet my left knee is constantly swollen from the rock hopping and negotiating the terrain. It is not painful, but it does let me know it is being pushed to its limit. My right ankle and foot are still kind of gimpy, collapsing every once in a while. So far, not at a critical time.
It has been 22 days. Amazing. Beautiful. Challenging. Awe inspiring. All good things must end, or so “they” say. Why is that?
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