Muir Pass 6/5

Looking down 7 miles toward the Kings canyon drainage, where we are headed. 

Golden Staircase. So named because of the color of the rock. An amazing piece of engineering. It takes us over 1200 ft down a narrow gully. 

DG winding her way down. 

Can you see DG?

Amazing waterworks abound. 

10 miles & 5000 feet of hiking we are back above 10,000ft. 

We're situated about 1,200 ft from Muir Pass. We had time to go higher but   post holing (leg sucking) is not what we are into. We're sure there is a lot of snow up there and it's late in the day so we'll attack early (6am) tomorrow. A bunch of young guys said they were going to camp on the pass but all there is up there is a grungy less than airtight rock mountain cabin, that smells dank  and rank. There is also an overweight bold big toothed marmot. We see him every time we do the pass. He is aggressive and quite self absorbed. No one I want to spend the night fending off. We're happy with our campsite by a lake in the sun and early to bed. Today was a short day (11 hours instead of 12). TC has still not recovered from yesterday's grovelling in the snow. Her quads still hurt in addition to her supplicating knees.

     We saw pink shooting stars in bloom today. Their petals are spread out behind them and pointed downward. The rest of them (the stamens and pollenating parts) point outward ready to take off. They look like those dancing women with their torsos' thrust forward and their heads tossed back. Everything of importance is out in front. What a trusting, confident stance.There are also some tiny break-your-heart fuzzy antena wielding periwinkle flowers arranged in mini bunches for your pleasure. 

       Something to note is that chipmunks, birds, and lizards all move at the same rate and in the blur, can be indistinguishable. 

       DG's name thing... for the sake of continuity and the fact that TC's name is the antithesis ( like Oscar'sand Felix's personalities) of DG's she will keep it but the one she prefers (created by TC) is Can Do. The other contender is Namechanger.

       Well, we have walked 836 miles and we're more than one quarter finished. There is no reason to believe we will not finish. We'll be happy when the snow is gone, like we were happy when the hot waterless desert was done but each day brings something new even if it is a new bruise, or .physical awareness of some achy thing. The water, mountains, flowers, animals, sunshine, trees more than make up for any discomfort we might incur walking a few thousand miles.

Our home for the night. Yes that is snow.