June 13, 2018 The Man From Snowy Mountain Passes

While Mission toils along snowy trails high in the Sierra Mountains crossing icy rivers and climbing alpine passes, Granny Hat is back at Mission Control planting an herb garden in the balmy 76 degree breeze and twiddling her green thumbs waiting for photos to download.  The herb garden is lovely with Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (Granny forgot the Parsley).  In fact, she has three varieties of Sage; Purple Leaf Sage, Garden Sage and Pineapple Sage, her favorite.  Granny has a lovely cousin named Sage and perhaps we will name the Sage patch in her honor.  We could call it Princess Sage or Bookworm Sage, we will let her decide. Granny also planted several varieties of Basil (Thai Basil has those pretty purple flowers) and different kinds of mint, including chocolate mint just because.  Granny Hat apologizes, Mission’s photography is so superior to hers.

Mission has crested three passes in the past 36 hours and is very close to the fourth.  Forester Pass at 13,153 feet (4,009 m), Glen Pass at 11,798 feet (3,596 m), Pinchot Pass at  12,106 ft and Mather Pass at 12,093 ft. Forester Pass is named for all the foresters that discovered and mapped it.  Glen Pass is named for Glen Crow, a forest ranger and Mather Pass is named for Stephen Mather, a retired industrialist millionaire who was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson as the first director of the National Park Service in 1917.  Pinchot Pass is named for Gifford Pinchot, a forester and politician from the early 20th century. Last night Mission camped by Rae Lakes between Glen and Pinchot passes.  Dad and Mission have camped there before and enjoyed some fresh-caught rainbow trout out of one of the lakes.  Rae Lakes are set like jewels in the granite above the timberline but you will have to twiddle your thumbs like Granny is doing and wait for those photos.

Granny’s friend SPOT is responsible for providing Mission’s daily progress and here are the Google Earth images of the spot check-ins for you mountaineers among my readers.

Mission is camped tonight at the base of Mather Pass and his check in GPS coordinates are: 37.00249,-118.45285    That’s right, he has another New Latitude!!  And his next re-supply, just a small padded mailer this time, is ready to send out tomorrow to Tuolumne Meadows.  He can purchase some light re-supply at Red’s Meadows for the short trek to Yosemite National Park.  Thank you for following and waiting patiently for some High Sierra photography.  And be sure to check out Granny Hat’s progress map below!