Day 8: Minarets, Ritter & Banner
We got up in the dark and as the
morning light crept into the sky we were serenaded by a coyote from somewhere
very near by. Kinda cool. Kinda creepy.
The steep climb up to Nancy Pass
was the familiar blend of grassy steps, a dirty scree path and blocky talus
with a little bit of bushwhacking thrown in for good measure. The geology of
this region was very different from the southern high Sierra and we were
presented with talus of a wider variety of shapes and sizes - not as many
car-sized boulders, but lots of unstable rocks from microwave to grapefruit to
pea size. It required a lot of concentration to navigate, but the colors of the
different rocks were amazing and provided good distraction.
On the opposite side of Nancy
Pass, we dropped down some steep talus, contoured around several wooded benches
and wandered through green meadowlands before climbing up to Minaret Lake.
There is a maintained trail that goes from the JMT straight to Minaret Lake and
we’d be lying if we said we didn’t kind of wish we’d just opted to take it from
the get go. Looking up we could start to see the steep and craggy towers of the
Minarets above.
After contouring around the lake
you come to an imposing headwall that forms a dam for Cecile Lake above. We
climbed up to it and despite all the footprints indicating that it was the
correct path, were stumped by how to mount what Roper nonchalantly describes as
a short “third class slot”. Without a pack on, the climbing would be fine, but
with a pack on it was decidedly more difficult, particularly for those of a
shorter stature. As Becky fretted and fumed about being sand-bagged by stupid
Steve Roper (Pete still maintains it was really only third class and not all
that bad), a group of eight Russian trail angels from Florida (no kidding) with
a rope appeared and graciously offered to climb up the 20 foot section and then
haul our packs on their rope. They’d backpacked this section many years ago and
knew a haul line for their particularly large backpacks would be handy. Becky
badly wanted to find a different way around so as to navigate the section
independently, but there was no other obvious path so we thanked them profusely
and accepted their offer. Had our fellow backpackers not arrived, we would’ve
figured something out, either climbing with packs or pulling the perlon
guylines from the tent to make a haul line, but accepting the assistance was a
nice time-saver.
Soon we were standing at the top,
packs in hand, once again thanking the Russians for their generosity. We
traversed around Cecile Lake to its outlet and started down what might be the
grossest section of route we’d been on. Very steep, very loose, very dirty and
with bad runout to a lake below and potentially sloughing cliffs above. We
actually wished we had climbing helmets at that point. We descended to Iceberg
Lake without incident and stopped at one of the most beautifully positioned
lakes we’d seen yet. It was crystal clear with numerous granite formations
under the water that you can clearly see and above it tower all of the
Minarets. There is also a maintained trail that climbs directly to Iceberg Lake
from the JMT and we decided that if we ever do this route again, we’re making a
beeline for Iceberg and skipping the nonsense of the previous five hours.
The next four hours had us
traversing through a broad, beautiful basin peppered with boulders and streams
below Ritter Peak before climbing up gentle benches and slopes to a shoulder
above Nydiver Lakes (beautiful lakes!) We took a short break and Becky noted that
her feet, ankles and knees were really starting to feel the miles of uneven
terrain of the previous week and especially that day. We hadn’t really thought
about it until just then, but Pete’s orthotics in his trail-running shoes were
basically thick, rigid plastic plates from the balls of his feet back to his
heels...no wonder the rocky terrain hadn’t battered his feet as badly as
Becky’s. We fueled up and tackled the last couple of miles to Thousand
Island Lake, our final destination of the day.
Before we even set up camp, we
threw down our packs and waded into to the thigh-deep, relatively warm lake for
a soak. Becky’s feet were on fire with blisters and her knees felt like
balloons. This condition prompted us to begin a discussion of what to do next.
If we continued on the SHR, we would start another 11 mile, highly convoluted,
completely off-trail section the next day before hitting a final 20 miles of
trail to get us back to the car. Or we could hightail it over to the JMT, a
short two mile hike from where we were and be back to the car in just 20
on-trail miles. Or we could take a zero day at the lake to rest and then
proceed with the SHR. This was when we kind of wished we’d brought that extra
day of food we left behind at Red’s. Taking a zero day meant eating all of the
extra “emergency” food we’d brought so if we had a real emergency later, we’d
be hosed. We decided to sleep on it.
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