| ”Wander a whole summer if you can. Time will not be taken from the sum of life. Instead of shortening, it will definitely lengthen it & make you truly immortal.” ~John Muir My favorite John Muir quote for my favorite guy's Birthday! Happy Birthday Jason...Thank you for letting me fulfill this wild & crazy idea and for sharing it with me!! 
I was very happy when I woke up to see some blue skies...I was up extra early to make a 'trail birthday hat' for Jason. He turned 42 today. I wanted to make it as special as it could be out on the trail. I re-hydrated his birthday cake and strawberries so he could enjoy it with his morning coffee. I even had a trail candle...or a match. While we were doing the resupplies, I wrote Happy B-day on his 9/13 oatmeal. He asked if he was getting a cake for his birthday...little did he know!
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We still made it out of camp by 9:30am. I made Jason wear his birthday hat almost all day...
and I really think I had more stuff hanging off my pack than inside my pack.
Looking back at camp one last time...and towards Mather Pass.
Looking back towards the Palisade's Lake from the trail up to the pass.
At Mather Pass--12,100 feet of elevation. Named after Stephen Mather,
the first head of the National Park Service.
Some nice views coming down from Mather Pass
We were going to break at the South Fork of the Kings crossing...and we found The Aussie's
breaking there also. They were so excited because they had a treat for Jason's birthday and sang
him Happy Birthday. We had passed another couple that saw his hat and sang for him!
We were debating where we were going to camp for the night. We had passed some Trail Workers doing maintenance (thank you) that had mentioned a side hike to Bench Lake. It was only 1.7 miles one way off the JMT. It was that or Lake Marjorie. We were going to decide later and we would either see them at camp...or the next day!
Funny...the maps show Mather Pass and Pinchot Pass were 10 miles apart yet the sign indicated
each was just 4 miles away from this point. Someone did etch different mileage into the sign.
We also found a HUGE mushroom on a log.
We had decided since it was not even 3pm yet that we would take the side hike to Bench Lake.
We would need to get up early tomorrow to get back on the JMT to go over Pinchot Pass
but the seclusion of a night at Bench Lake was worth it!
We nicknamed this Ant Lake because the Ants were HUGE here and all over the place.
I swear we were killing ants two days later. We had dessert of Birthday Cake,
Strawberries & Vanilla pudding. We were in bed by 8:30pm.
Miles Hiked Today: 10.9 Total Miles Hiked: 194.6 Total JMT Miles Hiked: 156.5
Elevation: 10,800 up to 12,100 down to 10,000 back up to camp around 10,800.
We were trying to camp prior to the passes so that we could get up and
over the pass in the mornings before potential bad weather would hit.
We were trying to camp prior to the passes so that we could get up and
over the pass in the mornings before potential bad weather would hit.
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