Red’s Meadow to Lake Virginia

Mileage 15.4 miles (24.8km), total 78.1 miles (125.7 km)

We were ready to get back on the trail today after having a zero at Red’s.  The path left Red’s past an interesting sign showing how far it was to each end of the PCT as well as the JMT. Realising we still had 165 miles to go to Whitney, we kept going.

The area was full of felled trees which apparently was due to a fire which had happened some years before.

The climb out of Red’s was pretty steep.  Eventually it finished and the trail became a little easier as we crossed from the Ansel Adams Wilderness into the John Muir Wilderness Area. The clouds were starting to build a little and it was clear that the thunderstorms in the afternoon which had started to occur were going to keep on happening. We passed some people on horseback who let us know we could expect some rain in the next hour or so. Sure it enough it hit, so around the Duck Creek area we decided to put up our tents as the thunderstorm rolled in.

We had a 2 hour wait whilst the thunderstorm went past. It was quite intense in parts with a bit of heavy rain/hail and loud cracks of thunder with a big fall in temperature. Eventually, it moved on and we were glad we had stopped with other hikers and not decided to hike on through it which would have been risky and dangerous given the lightning strikes.

It was then time to head on from our little rest spot and complete the rest of the day’s hiking. It was a nice day, not too hard from this point as we walked on past Purple Lake (thanks to Ben for the video below) and onto our campsite for the day at Lake Virginia.

There were a few people camping at the part of the Lake closest to us so we followed the trail around to find a empty spot big enough for two tents. We eventually found a nice spot nestled in close to both the water and the trail.  Once we had filtered our water, cooked dinner it was time to hit the sleeping bag ahead of our hike into Vermillion Valley Resort the next day.