Awesome sunrise on Mt. Banner and Ritter. So many great pictures of this it seems a shame to show just two, but you would probably just get bored. You just have to go and live this sometime.
Out of camp at 9 ish. Lots of people on the trail. Here we are at a small pass above Gem Lake, plenty of folks to take the picture, so we did not need to do a selfie. Still looking pretty clean . . .
On this stretch of trail, we saw multiple people hanging out there and using their phones. I just love the great outdoors . . . .
We stopped for water and snack at trail junction to Shadow Lake at Shadow Creek. We re-lived a moment from several years ago. On a trip with the Boy Scouts, one of the Scoutmasters "requested" that the scout who threw his lunch trash in the stream go into the frigid water to retrieve his trash. The scout complied and we were happily on the way..
Back to the present, Mark ran into an old acquaintance on trail down to Shadow Lake. What a small world.
We ate lunch at Shadow Lake, just a short ways after the JMT diverges from the trail up toward Garnet and Thousand Island Lake. We noticed a dramatic drop off in people on the trail after this junction. No one hiked by our lunch spot the whole time we were there.
It was a big climb away from Shadow Lake. We hiked past a few small pretty lakes, and stopped for the night at one of the Trinity Lakes. We experienced some sprinkles and a bit of hail as we neared camp, but elected to leave our rain gear in our packs. We did a bit of laundry there and relaxed. It was hard to decide what was better that night, the sunset
or the dinner of Pesto Pasta with a peanut butter cookie.
We shared an evening fire with Anton and his two friends. Anton had hiked from Whitney Portal to Red's Meadow in four and a half days. He really enjoyed hiking at night. His friends started to hike with him at Reds Meadow and the three were hiking to Yosemite Valley together. Anton told us someone was going to try to break the JMT speed record going North, starting on September 15th. See Day 11 and Day 18 posts for updates on this subject.
Daily Statistics
Miles hiked: 7.8
Elevation gain: 1300'
Elevation lost: 1200'
Precipitation: Short burst of light rain and hail, 5-10 minutes tops
Morning low temperature: Not recorded, likely low 40s or high 30s.
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