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PCT Day 159 – Visiting the Muir Trail Ranch

Last updated Feb 17, 2020 | Published on Sep 30, 2017

I woke up feeling tired and worn down this morning. Today’s itinerary primarily consisted of a downhill hike towards Muir Trail Ranch. I didn’t send a resupply there but I heard that they had hiker boxes overflowing with discarded food from JMT hikers so decided to check it out.

Evolution Lake

Around 10:00 am I was starving and cooked some risotto on my stove. It’s the first time I’ve cooked a dinner-type meal in the morning and it improved my mood considerably. Most of the day I my headphones on and didn’t take many breaks as I was motivated to get to Muir Trail Ranch.

A group of riders on horses camped at Evolution Lake. I stepped on horse poop the whole rest of the day.

I crossed Evolution Creek at noon. It’s known as one of the biggest creek crossings when in early season, but now the water only came up to just under my knee.

Evolution Meadow

Evolution Creek

I reached Muir Trail Ranch around 4:15 and scored a few things from the resupply buckets but they didn’t look very exciting. The good stuff was pretty picked over. A posted weather forecast predicted a 20% chance of snow on Thursday/Friday so I’ll be closely monitoring the weather.

Bridge over Piute Creek

Exiting Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and Entering the John Muir Wilderness

I hiked out of MTR when they closed at 5:00 pm and followed the trail back to the PCT. I decided to stop hiking early as I was feeling tired today and the trail leads uphill from here towards Selden Pass and I don’t want to camp at a high elevation again.

Muir Trail Ranch

Muir Trail Ranch

So I had a nice early evening and ate some mystery “adobo pork” from a packet I found at Muir Trail Ranch. It was actually pretty good.

PCT 2017 Stats

PCT Day 159 – Tuesday, September 19
Evolution Lake Mile 843 to Mile 859.5

PCT Miles Hiked Today: 14.7
Non-PCT Miles Hiked: 2.2
Total PCT Miles Hiked: 1729.8
Feet Ascended Today: 1277
Feet Descended Today: 3726
Current Elevation: 8420
Steps: 53108

For more on my experience hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, visit my Pacific Crest Trail Blog page.

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Hi, I'm Unicorn!

I am an avid hiker, traveler, and adventurer who is on the mission to explore hiking trails around the world.  I’m also obsessed with National Parks, long-distance trails and other outdoorsy things.

I hope to share this knowledge with you and inspire you to explore new hiking trails too!

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