Day 6: Duck Lake, Deer Lakes,
Mammoth Crest
We were definitely not in the
remote high country of the Sierras anymore. The next six miles of the SHR
shared the trail with the JMT. In the previous five days, we’d seen a grand
total of 16 people. In the first two hours of hiking on the JMT we saw 30.
We turned off the JMT at the Duck
Lake trail intersection and climbed 2 miles up to the very lovely Duck Lake. We
continued climbing up to Duck Pass, a popular Mammoth area day hike and then
veered off the trail to walk cross country over to the small, colorful, almost
Caribbean-looking Deer Lakes. We took a long break at Deer Lakes to filter
water and completely cool off as the next six miles would climb up and over the
completely waterless and largely treeless Mammoth Crest. The climb up the crest
was very warm, dry and dusty, but periodic breezes from the west kept things
reasonably comfortable. We had great views on all sides though it was a little
strange to look down on the civilization of Mammoth Lakes after five days in
the remote backcountry. We had line of sight to the cell towers on Mammoth
mountain so we were able to check in with friends and family before continuing
on.
The trail we’d been on veered
east to a trailhead down toward Mammoth Lakes, but we needed to continue north
so we followed a faint path through increasingly dusty and squishy pumice. Our
final descent was down a steep drainage of ankle deep pumice that was truly
awful. The gaitors won MVP piece of gear that day. We camped at McLeod lake
that night which, being only two miles from a major trailhead, felt a bit like
camping in a city park with the number of people around. At one point a woman
walked by video-chatting on her iPhone while walking her dog as Pete filtered
water from the lake. Weird.
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