A Family Meeting | Day 5 on the JMT

Day 5 included the first of many special treats along the trail.  As you can probably imagine the logistics of a trip like this are complicated and if you can get a little extra help from family and friends it makes the trip much easier.  Our first resupply occurred at the Touolume Meadows post office.   That resupply package had just enough food and digital storage to get us to Thousand Island Lake where we would meet my parents.  My Dad volunteered to meet Molly and I at Thousand Island Lake with enough food to get us to Muir Trail Ranch.  When I delivered the 17 pounds of food to him the look on his face was one of shock and horror, it was much more food and weight than he had planned on.  I quickly developed an alternate plan that had us stopping at Reds Meadow to pick up food two days later.  Dad was relieved.  At some point Mom decided that she too would like to try backpacking again.  The last time she went backpacking was sometime before I was born and apparently it was an unpleasant experience.  Mom and dad spent the spring and summer getting in shape for the hike and they both seemed to be looking forward to it.   So late in the afternoon on the last day in July (also their anniversary) Mom and dad met Molly and I at Thousand Island Lake.  We shared the stories of our respective hikes and ate relatively yummy freeze dried food.  Thanks Dad for volunteering to carry the food to us, it made the trip much more fun to have a family meet-up along the way.

7-31-09 We woke to a beautiful sunrise in our best campsite thus far.  After a quick breakfast of blueberries and oatmeal we were on our way to tackle the rest of Donohue Pass.  We quickly encountered a difficult river crossing and we both decided to stick one foot in the river instead of potentially falling all the way in.  The only problem with this plan was that I did not have a completely dry pair of socks to change into.  I ended up hiking for several hours in slightly damp socks.  (At this point I learned the joys of Merino Wool, after 5 minutes I could not feel the wetness and my feet were no worse for the wear!)  We were on the summit by 8:30 and then made the long descent toward Island Pass.  We climbed Island Pass without any trouble and recognized the site where we camped with the rest of the family two years earlier.  We arrived at Thousand Island Lake at about 1:00 and awaited the arrival of Mom and Dad.  When they arrived at 3:00 they were very tired but seemed to recover pretty quickly.  I was glad I had sent food to Reds Meadow instead of giving it all to dad to haul up the mountain.  We camped above the lake with a view of the Ritter Range.  The sunset was Spectacular!