Miles: 903.8 to 925.7

Mileage: 21.9, plus 0.6 to Reds Meadow

Day: 55

Today Richard and I hit 1,000 miles on the trail. This figure includes the 80 miles we slacked at the end of May. Yay!

It rained overnight. It’s so nice to be under the cover of a tent in the rain. Hearing the patter on the nylon always makes the rain sound harder and louder than it really is, but even in a sprinkle, I’m glad for a tent. 

We got moving despite the rain and made it to Reds Meadow in less than an hour. The trail leading to Reds went through the swath of destruction that is the leftovers of the Rainbow Fire from 1992. The healthy trees have made quite the comeback but the fire damaged trees have almost all blown over. And some of them where huge. The trail crew must have come through after a harsh winter or major wind storm blew over all the trees. 

 

 
Reds Meadow is a store/diner/campground outpost in the middle of the Sierras. Many hikers use it as an access point for Mammoth Lakes, California.

At Reds we ate breakfast, checked the Internet and tried to connect to the real world. We intended to stay just an hour or so, but ended up spending three hours there. 

We got moving again around noon, just as the rain picked back up. We could see the storm following us up the valley and when it hit, we were wet for hours. The sun never really came out, but we trooped north anyway. 

The terrain took us uphill, slowly at first, then steeper, all day. 

The last few miles took us up to then above Thousand Island Lake. It was beautiful in the evening light.

We crossed over Island Pass at 7:40 p.m. The descent to camp was just over a mile.

I set up the tent and Richard made dinner; our usual evening roles.

We ate Spanish rice sitting on our bear canisters and talked about the tent cabin with a wood stove we’d rented for the next night in Tuolumne Meadows.