John Muir Trail, 2007: Day 5 - Deer Creek to Cascade Valley

This was a long but enjoyable day. We rose early and hit the trail around 7 am. In no time at all we had reached Duck Creek where we took a short snack break and enjoyed the running water. A few miles later it was Purple lake, where Michael took a dip. The rest of us waited until Virginia Lake, where we swam and lounged around in the sun for quite a while. Eventually we decided it was time to move on and followed the trail down a 1000 foot drop into Tully Hole - an absolutely beautiful stretch of trail but a bit tough on the knees! We went another mile or so down the trail so we could camp near the bottom of the next morning's climb to Silver Pass.
This day's stats:

• Mileage: 13.37 mi
  
• Ascending: 2351 ft
  
• Descending: 2378 ft
  
• Cumulative Mileage: 55.2 mi
  
• Cumulative Ascending: 9212 ft
  
• Cumulative Descending: 8785 ft