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Aug 15 -- the Longest Day -- Famous Shadow Lake -- hot dinner & resupply

The sun gradually climbing up Mt. Ritter and Banner was quite spectacular. I tried to avoid holding everyone up by starting to pack up my gear while everyone else was still in their sleeping bags. I then went out along the lakeshore to shoot a few individual photos of morning's first light. We made our breakfasts on the one stove. I have to admit there's something about watching everyone else make their food in the backcountry which is like thinking the grass is always greener.

I still remember the sense I had descending into Garter Lake on my first trip here, and looking up to the other side and seeing the trail go straight up the side of the mountain, so I was dreading the climb out of our campsite and straight up. From watching other people I've begun to be aware of how easy it is to straining muscles and joints so I took it very slowly in order to warm up. The sense of the pack as a torture device was only getting worse each day. I found the rest of the group waiting for me near the top. It was not as grueling as I remembered it.

We now began a long descent and Zach and I went into high gear and trucked all the way to Shadow Lake. Somehow when I was hiking with someone else, the pain did not seem as bad. I began to recognize the territory as I had been in this area last year when I went to Lake Ediza. A feature of the Pacific Crest Trail which is no fun at all is the giant rock steps. There are places where they put large square-shaped rocks as steps, and sometimes they are two feet high. That's fine for horses, but not for people. We noticed a sign above Shadow Lake showing how you can't camp anywhere near there. So much for that idea.

We regrouped at the bridge across Shadow Creek. I checked my feet and they were quite sore, but exposing them to air did a lot of good. At the same time, I developed a tremendous itchiness on my feet and upon closer examination, seemed to have some kind of hives-like inksplotch bumps on my feet. David was very kind to lend me some cream which helped. While filtering my water, I spotted a beautiful miniature Tiger Lily and pointed it out to anyone who would listen.

All too quickly we got up and departed this heavenly rest spot. Zach and Susan were ahead of me and David behind but I was not in sight of any of them. I began to doubt I was on the right trail, but did see some footprints which looked a bit like Zach's size 14 boots. We were paralleling Shadow Lake for quite awhile, then the ascent began and I caught up with the two ahead of me. We climbed and climbed and climbed. The trail zig zagged up the mountain some 800 feet. At one point we were resting and my hiking stick slipped out of my grasp and headed down the slope! Zach offered to climb down and get it, for which I was profoundly thankful, as I was very tired. When the three of us got to the top of the pass, we collapsed under some trees and had a very pleasant rest that seemed like half an hour.

We headed south now as four but quickly got straggled out. We passed by a number of small boggy lakes. Unfortunately because of the marshy look of things, we didn't stop to filter water here. If I had had a map I would have noticed the next stretch had no water. Then we began entering a different kind of biotic zone in the descent to Johnston Meadow. Lots of trees, lots of sandy soil, and no water. There were signs, like on Mars, that water had once been here. It felt like we had to walk forever to get out of that parched canyon. I began to harbor fantasies of dropping off the trail and straight down the hillside to a stream. I drank my last bit of water and we continued to plunge further downhill. When we got to Johnston Meadow, we found a boggy bug-ridden lake and filtered water there. David and Sue headed out without me, so I walked alone for another while. There was one exciting stream crossing on a big fallen log. I caught up to them on the descent to Devil's Postpile. The trails got confusing there so I'm glad we were together. We got to the Mineret Falls campground area and saw lots of kids playing, throwing rocks in the stream, and I expected that we were just around the corner from Reds. If I only had a map, I could have seen how wrong that was. We went by the Devil's Postpile and then proceeded *up* another hill. I thought Reds would be down in the flat, but no, it was uphill. After what seemed like an indeterminable hike up and down and through a desolate burned area, we came to a road where there was a shuttle bus, pausing as if waiting for us. We saw the sign that said Reds Meadow and hiked only a little bit further to the actual place. We threw off our packs and leaving Susan to guard them, proceeded in the store to procure some liquid refreshment, Zach having already gotten here some time before. One of the most refreshing Sobe's I ever drank!

I asked at the store for my food cache which I had sent via UPS the previous week. They couldn't find it. I began to panic. I looked around the store and considered what foods I could buy, like peanut butter, and cheese. Well the Reds employees kept looking, and expanded the search and found my box was sitting in the manager's office, because of the way I labeled it. What a relief! We moved our gear into our cabin and took turns taking showers. What a great thing a hot shower is! I found the insane itch was spreading. I bought some lotion from the store and that seemed to work. We had dinner in the cafe--since we were not in time to reserve an actual dinner entree, we ordered off the lunch menu. After Zach ordered a salad all of us suddenly added salads to our sandwich orders. I had a BLT which was pretty good.

After a dinner we still had a lot to do. We started on the laundry, but it turned out that one washing machine wouldn't take our quarters and the other would only wash for part of a cycle. The Reds meadow people were very nice and let us use one of their washers for free. Susan took apart her stove and tried to fix it but evidently something in the gas valve was blocked up. Then we had to repack our food for the rest of the trip. We quickly developed a big pile of extra food. The funny thing is that most of us found something useful or interesting in other's discarded items. I took some of David's dried apricots, while Zach took some of my extra miso soup. We retired that night profoundly tired but happy to be resting comfortably.

At this semi-midpoint in the trip, I was very relieved to have some creature comforts, but at the same time somewhat discouraged. I missed out shooting a lot of places I had hoped to shoot, and my body was pushed to the limit as well as itching from a hives like problem. It may have been a factor in my decision to leave many rolls of my fresh film at Reds.