Day 12

Day 12, July 14, 2012 (Alexandra) These new benedryl pills that I picked up at MTR are too much! This morning was supposed to be a super early start to make our 14 mile day over Muir Pass – but I could not wake up. Even after walking two miles I was still in a daze. I felt drugged, every body part was heavy and clutzy. By lunch time I had snapped out of it, but we still have 6 miles to go before we made it to the top of Muir Pass. BTW, we haven’t seen anyone who we started the trail with at all. I think my favorite part of passes are the Alpine lakes, they are all glacier melt- crystal clear and have decent sized fish in them. These lakes are all 11,000 – 12,000 feet up, very few people ever see them. How do the fish get in these lakes? And who eats these fish? We passed three lakes on the way to Muir and with the help of the headphones, we rocked it out! Reached the summit at 4:30 pm. There is a hut at the top of Muir pass which the Sierra Club built in his memory. We met a group of 5 men in their 50’s, 60’s who were there doing a 60 mile, 3 passess, days trip. They were super chatty and were amazed we were from TN. We started our descent around 5:30 and boy it was intense. Complete opposite of our ascent. We even crossed a massive snow embankment which I fell and slide down, getting my chaco’s full of snow. The descent was killer, we were going on 14.5 miles and the sun was behind the peak so the temp was dropping fast. I was over it! Exhausted and sore, not wanting to take another steep step. Jasin found the only tiny campsite and we collapsed. I laid in the tent as soon as it was up & huddled under Jasin’s sleeping bag as the temp quickly dropped below 40 degrees before 7 pm. It is going to be a cold night. I was so exhausted that I didn’t even want dinner. I hope tomorrow is easy cause I need a break! Love, 14.5 miler