Day 9: Woods Creek to Lake Marjorie (via Pinchot Pass)
9.6 miles, 3638 ft elevation gain, 998 ft elevation loss

Today would be our biggest elevation gain; from Woods Creek it was 3,638 feet to Pinchot Pass. The elevation was spread out over 7.6 miles and it was steady climbs broken up by flatter areas, so in the end it wasn’t as much of a slog as it could have been (this day felt easier than some of our other days). We took our time - nearly six hours to reach the pass. Unfortunately it was another overcast day and I didn’t take very many pictures on our approach to the pass or from the pass itself, although it was a pretty area. Being it was a shorter day we had plenty of time to linger at the pass. We had fun chatting with fellow hikers and they got some pictures of Norah’s candy backpack (we kept Norah’s pack weight low - she mostly just carried her candy stash or “power pellets” as we call them). The candy backpack came in handy on our descent to Lake Marjorie. We passed by CCC trail crews working hard on the trail and Norah handed out Blow Pops to everybody. Pretty random to encounter a kid handing out suckers in the backcountry - they all seem pleasantly surprised.

Lake Marjorie was only two miles and a thousand feet descent from the pass. We could have covered more miles this day, but didn’t want to pass up camping at Lake Marjorie, which was one of our tradeoffs for bypassing camping at Rae Lakes. I’m glad we opted in here - it was one of our favorite campsites. Gorgeous location and views and being a shorter day we had plenty of time to kick around camp. The skies improved a little in the afternoon and we had a nice sunset. Another great day on the JMT!

Day 10: Lake Marjorie to Palisade Lakes (via Mather Pass)
11.1 miles, 2050 ft elevation gain, 2407 ft elevation loss

The clouds from yesterday had cleared considerably and we had a nice sunrise at Lake Marjorie. It was a beautiful morning as we got ready to hike our last pass on the JMT: Mather Pass.The hike started easy with a nice walk down to Upper Bench, then a steeper descent to the crossing of the South Fork of the Kings River. A larger than normal snowpack made this water crossing one of the most dangerous this year, however when we crossed we could easily wade it.

We had a slow climb up to Upper Basin; it was a gradual ascent and very pretty. It clouded up as we were doing the final push up Mather Pass. The views were still great, but it was not very photogenic. We were enjoying the views and talking to the other hikers, but decided to get a move on as the clouds were starting to look ominous. Sure enough, part way down it started to rain hard enough we stopped to put on our rain gear (first time in ten days, not too bad). Thankfully the rain didn’t last long.There were some patches of snow we had to downclimb around, but otherwise the descent was okay. By the time we reached upper Palisade Lake the sun was back out and we scoped out potential campsites. We saw several campsites along the upper lake, but they were either occupied, not very close to water, or didn’t have the best views. We’re glad we held out because we found a terrific site on a large flat rock in between the lakes (we used rocks to anchor our tent and it held fine when we had some rain and wind during the night). The views in both directions were fabulous and it was our favorite campsite of the trip. A stellar sunset certainly influenced our decision - it was a vivid, gorgeous sunset and we had a fantastic evening at Palisade Lakes.