TR: Florence to Evolution

[John Doe]

Just did the Florence to Evolution. It was great. The day before we camped at Shaver, which actually wasn't as bad as people would think it is. We found a decent campsite last minute.

Drove the road to Florence and it's pretty interesting. It's largely one-lane with a lot of potholes & blind curves for about 15-17 miles. It took awhile.

Took the boat across Florence, was dropped off at 1:30. Made to about Blayney the first night, not far by any means. In the a.m. we were visited by a Ranger who told us we were too close to the trail. I know, I don't wanna be that guy who doesn't follow the rules, but I was. Just one of those things as there was an established site area with a lot of people & we were just a few feet too close to the trail. Nevertheless the we strictly followed all rules after, lesson learned.

Day 2 made it up to Evolution Meadow. The climb wasn't bad as I'm a bit of a Big Sur local. We have a great hike that's 1800' in 2 miles, figured this would be similar and it wasn't that bad at all. Found a nice campsite, that was correctly positioned but very buggy. We had packed our rain gear as the day before it poured for an hour. They had hail, lightning & strong rain. Rain gear worked great as bug deterrent. I don't like to use Deet so I'd rather tough it out.

Day 3 we went up to McClure, not far at all. Wanted to explore the area. It was indescribably beautiful. Really spectacular spot & worth the work. Beautiful night, beautiful sunset, beautiful views & pretty quiet.

Day 4 we came down to Piute junctions. It was hot, really hot, about 90. At night puffs of hot air would blow thru, then puffs of cold air. Slightly tough sleeping conditions. As we were coming out we had one of those JMT funny moments. Some Hungarian guy & his wife were cruising along dressed in what appeared to be a tie & white shirt. Turns out it was. Granted it was a hiking shirt but the visual was funny as he had on long khaki pants. We get to the creek crossing & there's a pretty blond refilling her water, another nice looking couple, me & my wife. The hungarian dude whips off his clothes, is yammering about something & slowly walks into the creek with his business flapping in the breeze. He was coming from the opposite side so the ladies on the west bank had the full visual of some very serious 70's bush on a very skinny man. I was looking at the face of the women as he came & they looked like the swallowed something that had sat out in the sun too long. Then their jaws dropped as he came more clearly into view. I called to my wife, "check it out". She started shaking her head. It was very funny.

Further on we bumped into the McClure Meadow ranger (and his super cute coworker) on the way further down & had a GREAT conversation about....you guessed it....Randy Morgenson. My thing is that I strongly believe there's another good book to be written about being a backcountry ranger. He had a lot of interesting things to say, of course & was really great.

Day 5 we got up early & made it back to the dock in about 3.5 hours. It was a great trip. Not sure what else I can say. Evolution was pretty buggy at times. Definitely head-net conditions but otherwise spectacular.

[jillsocean]

Great report! I did this trip last summer, with a night on Darwin Bench (brrr), two nights at Evolution Lake, and a day hike to Muir Pass. We were planning on the Goddard Creek - Evolution loop but stream crossings were worryingly high. My friends did not want to spend much time in Evolution Valley so we did not get to sleep there. I really wanted to be there for dawn and dusk to see potential wildlife. It IS indescribably beautiful.