I woke up early in the morning and when I poked my head out the door the sky was a brilliant red.  I yelled for Brian to get up to start photographing the incredible sky but he was already out snapping away.  The clouds were zooming past the peaks near Evolution Basin and the early morning sunrise was turning them into fire.  Brian got a lot of great photos and as the sun came up the clouds continued to dissipate.  It looked like the rain may be finished and we would have a great day.  Our goal was to hike down to the junction of the South Fork of the San Joaquin River and Piute Trail.   This would only be about 8 miles of hiking so we did not see any need to hit the trail early.

Brain spent the morning taking photos and hiking around the meadow while I fished for goldens in Evolution Creek.  Although the fish were a little on the small size, they were really biting and I caught over a dozen before we decided that we better break camp and get started.

We ran into several John Muir Trail thru-hikers.  One of them was a man in his 70s who was doing the trail alone.  He said that his children had insisted on him carrying a satellite phone for safety.   He told us that he could get a signal pretty much anywhere except perhaps not in heavy tree cover.  I hope that I am in as good a shape as he is when I am his age.

We hiked pass Evolution Meadow and stopped to check it out.  We both thought that we had made the right choice in stopping to camp in McClure Meadow, as the views back toward the mountains were not as dramatic here. 

Just past Evolution Meadow we had to ford a wide section of the creek, which would most certainly have been more difficult early in the season.  We were able to make the crossing by hopping across rocks for the most part with our boots on.  We ran into a girl who was taking a lunch break on the other side of the crossing.  She was hiking the JMT alone and told us that she had intended on coming back and doing the JMT ever since she had hiked the Pacific Crest Trail.  As our conversation with her progressed we found out the she did not hike the PCT in Oregon or Washington and did not even do all the state of California.  I guess by her standards I can claim to have hiked the JMT now even though I have only completed 23 miles of it.  We gave her some of our extra food and sent her on her way down the trail ahead of us.

We started our descent toward Goddard Canyon.  We quickly came upon a nice waterfall that Brian wanted to photograph as it started to drizzle on us.   I took the opportunity to put on my rain pants and have a snack.  While we were there, another woman came hiking through.  She stopped to talk with us for a while and told us she was also doing the JMT.  She noticed that Brian was really equipped for some serious photography so she started asking him some questions on how to “silk out” a waterfall photo.  He gave her some suggestions and even helped her set up the shot with her camera.  I think he is going to send her a bill.

The sky was mostly gray as we made our way down to the SF of the San Joaquin River.  We passed and talked with a few more JMT hikers along the way.  Today provided us with one of the busiest sections of trails of our whole hike.  The Goddard Canyon below Aspen Meadow is quite steep and very scenic.  We took a few photos along the way but the weather was not co-operating much.   Luckily for us, the rain quit by the time we reached our camp at the trial junction with Piute Trail.

We found a nice place to set up camp and even though the evening was mostly cloudy, we had no more rain for the day.  We explored the area around our camp and Brain was able to get some nice sunset photos down the valley.  One good thing about the weather of the last two days was that it made very colorful sunsets.

Brian and I sat around the campfire late into the evening talking and discussing where we should camp for the next night.  We still had a couple of days before we had to be back in Bishop and it was nearly 18 miles to North Lake over Piute Pass at 11423’.  Our camp this night along the river was 8060’ so it would be quite a climb up to the pass.

Evolution Creek

Evolution Creek

Evolution Creek

Goddard Canyon

Goddard Canyon

Goddard Canyon

Goddard Canyon

Goddard Canyon

S.F. San Joaquin

Last Camp Sunset

Last Camp Sunset

DAY 7