Devil’s Postpile National Monument

Will drove us all back to Red’s Meadow early and decided to join us for a couple days of hiking. We walked into Devil’s Postpile National Monument right away. The Devil’s Postpile is a bunch of hexagonal basalt columns. I’ve seen that elsewhere at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland and it’s pretty cool.

After the monument, the PCT and JMT split for the rest of the day. We took the JMT side, which is supposedly prettier and shadier. Everyone was moving pretty slowly today. I made it to Rosalie Lake for lunch and jumped in for a minute to cool off before eating. Then I sat there for almost three hours. There was a breeze that kept the mosquitoes at bay so it was hard to leave.

The afternoon moved a little more quickly, as we hiked down into each successive lake valley and back out again, eventually arriving at Thousand Island Lake, where the two trails joined together again. 16.3 miles today.