Chapter Nineteen: Muir
*This is a photo companion to my book, Crunch: A Million Snowy Steps Along the Pacific Crest Trail, available on Amazon here.
May 27, 2017
Helen Lake
June 2016 - Wanda Lake, even in a lower snow year, Muir Pass is typically 5+ miles of snow travel.
May 2017 - Insane amounts of snow in Wanda Lake and around Muir Pass.
Picture stop as soon as there was enough (ish) light to do so.
Thor and Amped, headed for water in Evolution Creek.
June 2016 - Peaks surrounding Evolution Basin.
May 2017 - Peaks surrounding Evolution Basin.
Heading straight across the Evolution Lake highway.
Nearing the outlet of Evolution Lake.
Creeks converging and still no sign of a snowbridge...
Amped crossing Evolution Creek the easy, non-torturous way.
Beautiful Evolution Creek.
Traversing along Evolution Creek, thankfully on the right side...
June 2016 - The meadow crossing at Evolution Creek in a lower snow year.
May 2017 - The meadow crossing of Evolution Creek. Slow moving, but deep. Thank God for upstream snowbridges.
Looking down into the South Fork of the San Joaquin drainage, where we'd camp for the night.
South Fork of the San Joaquin... I'm not sure how they built a bridge over this thing way in the backcountry, but I sure as hell wanted to drop to my knees and make-out with it.
Camp in the snow honeycomb.
Trench warfare. Us against the melting snow trying to flood under our tents.