Aug 18: String of lakes -- Pinchot Pass -- Golden Gate of the Sierras

Before sunrise, I go down to the lake to filter some water first thing. A young woman walks over to where I am filtering water and asks me about who I’ve seen of the trail crew. Evidently yesterday she and some friends hiked over from the other side of Pinchot Pass to meet another group of trail crew and didn’t find them.

After getting a full night’s sleep, a hearty breakfast and I’m ready to go. But the light is just too good and I shoot a pano of the lake and one looking back to Upper Basin and Mather Pass.

We pass some small lakes and quickly come to Lake Marjorie where everyone passes me by as I load a fresh roll of film.

I catch up in the windy, cold uphill to Pinchot Pass. I feel strong as an ox, despite my cold still lingering on. Pinchot Pass was wonderful. It felt like we could see forever, even if that was only Glen Pass on the southern horizon. The cellphone is just as useless as it’s been on any of the last 50 miles.

We studied the map and thought we could see Mt. Pinchot, Mt. Wynne, Mt. Perkins, Mt. Cedric Wright, Colosseum Mtn, Crater Mountain, Mt. Baxter, and Acrodeetes Peak. There's some question whether the most distant peaks to the south are the mountains around Glen Pass.

I’m the first to leave the pass again, and I truck on down the trail. After a mile or two, I come to a nice lake and filter some water and shoot a pano.

As I’m regaining the trail, Susan and David arrive. I’m a bit surprised, as I thought I was further ahead of them than that.
It’s a long, long descent to the Golden Gate of the Sierra at Woods Creek. It gets hotter too. I stop to take a shot of the rocky canyon:

and of the terrain above the river crossing:

Finally I arrive at the bridge we’ve been talking about, and it lives up to its reputation. A one-person-at-a-time contraption that is very rickety. I cross and rest. Then I go back out and shoot a panorama from the middle:

As I’m shooting a ranger comes by but doesn’t talk to me. Finally I have some time to make a sportsdrink. David and Susan arrive, and I take their pictures on the bridge. We all soak our tired feet in the raging torrent that is Woods Creek. The camp has signs posted warning about how bears have stolen food right out of hiker’s hands. There are lots of bear boxes at the heavily used campsite--a reminder that we are entering the heavily used and relatively-close-to-civilization Rae Lakes loop.

We reluctantly file out of this campsite and head up the side canyon which leads to the Rae Lakes. It seems like an unending uphill. We keep looking for the sidetrail to Baxter Lakes in order to pinpoint where we are but we never see it until we reach Dollar Lake. The climb seems like it never ends. We decide to camp here as we’re getting tuckered out.

We have the lake to ourselves, and find a great spot that is like a rocky command post. I make MSR cous-cous for dinner -- which turns out much tastier than it looked in the container. I set up my tent and attempt to air out my now unbelievably rank poly shirt. Seven days on the trail, two to go. I run out of white gas after dinner and we transfer some from David’s reserve.

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