Day 7 - Click on Map
Day 7 (August 1) started out cold. The warm front that took over California and Nevada had definitely moved east and the colder air was moving in. We woke up to frost on the tent and the camp shoes outside. It tested the Phantom 32D that I got for the trip, but except for my knee to straight nylon shell I was okay. When we woke up, we found that we had been vandalized in our camp the night before! A marmot (as we suspect) had eaten half of Mike's camp towel the night before! It was actually a pretty funny sight to see the gnawed up towel laying on the rock where he had set it out the night before. At least it was only the towel.

Since it was a brisk morning, I made due with my Thermawrap jacket, fleece cap and gloves, as well as my long john bottoms and tops. We started out about 7 am and it did not take too long up the canyon before I had to get rid of those. It is always fun to undress part way up the trail early in the morning. The ascent up Mather Pass was not very hard, but it was an interesting trail. You start off traversing the bowl below the pass on the east side and then work across the face of the hill on a long traverse across some pretty rocky terrain. Once to the west side, you then start your switchbacks up the hill and then make your way through the boulders to the pass. We again were rewarded with some magnificent views to the north and south. We made it up pretty early in the morning and since it was colder than usual, the few snow patches on the north side were still pretty icy! Instead of messing with going through these, we made our way around by doing some interesting rock hopping. All in all the way down the pass was easy and not dangerous as some of the southbound hikers the previous day had said. But then they were also the ones that warned us of the mosquitoes, which we found to be little more than a nuisance.

The trip down to the Palisade Lakes was not bad and the wildflowers were beautiful. It is truly amazing to see how these flowers can grow in almost no soil and at such elevations and still have remarkable color and beauty. The pictures of these along the way do them little justice as their magnitude across the Sierras this trip were immense. We stopped at the base of the lakes, seeing many fish along the way, and tried the outlets for some luck along the way. There were several large fish in the small creeks leading from the lake, but they were easily spooked. Mike did fairly well, but I got skunked in this section. The stream running down the canyon was moving too fast to fish, so we left our rods setup and carrying them down the trail about 15 minutes and found some calmer waters. We were both treated to some excellent fishing from one section, where rainbows, goldens and hybrids were abundant. I cannot recall a time anywhere else where we could trade casts into this one pool with each of us pulling out a good size fish and then keep it going for so long. We must have pulled out over 20 fish between the two of us in this one pool and I am almost sure that they were never the same fish. It felt good and to catch and release made it even better.

After the fish, we packed up and headed down the canyon, down the infamous Golden Staircase. It reminded me of the switchbacks in Zion at Walter's Wiggle, were they are just carved into the side of the mountain. They are pretty amazing. However, the pull down the hill was starting to tell our feet that the miles so far were beginning to take their toll. The blisters were just starting to really take hold and the rocks on the trail were not being kind! We stopped for lunch in the canyon along the stream before making our way up the canyon and into the meadow section. Grouse Meadow was full of water and the views were really nice. Not too many mosquitoes along the way, but a lot of people were still wearing their headnets at camp. We made it past the ranger station at Le Conte after crossing the bridge over Dusy Creek. As we went through Little Pete Meadow, it was time to start looking for a place to camp, but most of the sites were taken and one the pack outfitters had their llamas grazing by the trail. We found a really nice site up the hill out of Little Pete Meadow, on the way to Big Pete Meadow (as others will say, Little is bigger than Big!). Our camp had a nice views of Little Pete Meadow below and were were able to camp above the dew and mosquitoes for the night.

To view photos of our trip please refer to the Photo Albums section of this site!