Hiking the JMT: Upper Lyle Canyon to Emerald Lake/Thousand Island Lake (Day 5)

Banner Peak and Thousand Island Lake

Highlights of Day 5

Crossed the first of the high elevation passes, Donohue Pass
Got caught in massive mid-day hail storm, with accompanying thunder & lightning
Hiked past Thousand Island Lake and Banner Peak
Camped at Emerald Lake due to all the established sites at Thousand Island Lake already being full (only time this happened to us on entire JMT)
Cheered on our friend as he swam in naught but a speedo in a freezing cold lake

Trail Journal

9:00 pm

Highlights of today:

– Crossed Donohue Pass (not nearly as challenging as I’d feared!)

The view from the top of Donohue Pass (11,073 ft)

– Got caught in massive mid-day hail storm, with accompanying thunder & lightning. Waited it out in a little stand of trees (a good place to be in a lightning storm), between what quickly became a raging creek (bad place to be in a lightening storm) and a large castle of granite with many cracks and rivulets of water (also a bad place to be) running past us and into the creek. Very exciting, particularly when the hail was coming down so hard that it was a little painful, the lightening was so bright the entire darkened sky lit up, and the thunder was so loud (and simultaneous with the lightening–it was right above us!) that I could feel it in my chest.

Shorly after this photo was taken, these clouds erupted into a HUGE lightening & thunder storm. Photo courtesy of R.G. Smarkel.

Other happenings:

– Augie swam in Lake Emerald (camped here rather than Thousand Island Lake due to difficulty of finding close sites @ Thousand Island Lake), in just a speedo & goggles! He made a swimming friend from a nearby campsite.

– Met “Fat,” a gregarious wizard-like fellow that we ate lunch with, & whom we spent part of the hail/thunderstorm with. He’s also through-hiking the JMT.

-Saw a most gorgeous sunset. I feel like I keep saying everything is most amazing, but it’s true! The sky was lit up with so many pinks and reds and oranges, and the clouds looked soaked with color. The reflection of the sunset on the surface of the lake was nearly as vivid as the sunset itself, and Mt. Banner and the surrounding mountains loomed up through all the beauty.

Lake Emerald

Confession time:

Every evening, when I’m completely exhausted and even eating seems like too much work, I think about how nice it would be not to have to hike for 8-10 hours, pump all my water, sleep on uncomfortable sleeping pads (uncomfortable, but very light), set our alarm every day for 5-5:30 am, go to sleep completely exhausted, worry about bears and lightning storms, etc….
During those moments I think about exiting the trail, going to a hotel, or to our apartment in San Diego, or even to a car-camp ground, and resting.

Don’t get me wrong, there are so many moments when I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else–and I’m sure I will look back and be sooo glad to have each and every one of the memories I’ve made.

But it’s hard–every day is wonderful, but so hard.

I’m sure it doesn’t help that I went into this trip/”vacation” already completely exhausted, due to moving and starting a new job a week ago. Maybe if I hadn’t already felt so depleted, I wouldn’t feel as run down as I do now.

So for now I’m taking things one day at a time. And really, I’m here in an absolutely jaw-droppingly gorgeous part of the world, with my life partner/love of my life and with two of my favorite people/friends–that’s pretty hard to beat.