9 August 2022
Lake 10742 to Palisade Lakes
(13 miles, +2,800/3,000 feet).

I stayed up quite a while last night trying to figure out a Plan B in case we needed to hike Half Cookie out today.

But it turns out it was needless worry. Her swelling went down overnight and she was in good spirits this morning. We decided to press on.

The ground was still soggy as we packed up this morning, but it was not (yet) raining and we had nothing but downhill ahead of us.

So a good morning indeed!

At Dusy Creek footbridge I climbed the falls to get some shots of the wildflowers.

After the break, we continued our descent.

We crossed Dusy Creek again where the terrain flattened out and it got really green.

After another 1,000 feet of descent we made it to the John Muir Trail! We found the campsite we stayed in when we started our northbound journey on the JMT 2 years ago, and we took a nice long break.

After our break we continued descending until we reached the confluence of Palisade Creek with the Middle Fork Kings River.

So far, we had gotten lucky with the weather. But clouds were building. And we now faced a long, long uphill climb along Palisade Creek and up the Golden Staircase.

We reached the treeline around 4pm and had to decide whether to camp or press on.

Rain was definitely coming, but if we didn’t make it to Palisade Lake today, we would have difficulty getting over Mather Pass tomorrow before the storms roll in.

And there’s not really any place to camp between the trees and the lake, so it’s kind of an all-or-nothing choice.

We decided to go for it.

After three very long hours, we finally finished the climb. And it stopped raining!

Half Cookie’s foot seemed to do alright today, but it is quite swollen. I hope it doesn’t get worse!