Day 64: mile 864.2 to mile 883.1
6.18.18. 18.9 miles.
A lot of ground was covered today! I tried a new thing this morning where I gave myself only 50 minutes to get ready instead of 1 hr. Since I overslept my alarm yesterday and managed to get ready in 40 min with a poop, I figured I could do 50 min. And I did!
We had less than 2 miles to the top of Selden Pass, and it went very well! Almost no snow, which was amazing, and the pass didn’t even feel like a pass! So much easier than the others we’ve done. The view of the north from the top was still so beautiful though! Definitely a high reward pass for not a ton of effort. We strolled down the north side admiring the lakes and mountains. This morning felt like quintessential Sierra to me. Meadows, pine trees, white boulders scattered, a river, lakes, mountains with some snow, a little bit of sunshine streaming thru the trees. So magical!
Shortly after descending Selden, we came upon Bear Creek which apparently super notorious for being a crazy creek crossing. Honestly it wasn’t bad at all. South Fork of the Kings was worse.
In the afternoon, we started a mini-climb, which was super annoying bc there were so many downed trees on the climb, which just makes things harder. We were aiming for a stream, which according to Guthook’s, had AT&T service! Low and behold, it did! I shared my hot spot with Hot Mess & Butters & we all got some internet time, and we all were able to book rooms in Mammoth Lakes. We’re taking 2 zeros, and I splurged and got myself my own room at a real hotel. Happy Birthday to me!
I may be able to beat Simone Biles at balance beam after crossing all these streams on logs 😂
The afternoon was super annoying after that. Just a lot of dusty, slippery rocky, hot trail with super narrow switchbacks down to the junction with VVR. And then, a super hot, exposed trail with giant granite steps to our stream crossings before camp. I needed something to take my mind off of it, so I listened to some music to get me thru (thanks T Swift & the Spizzwinks!). There were two stream crossings: mono which was fine, and Silver Creek, which is a waterfall that flows over the trail! It’s super cool but wasn’t a huge deal when crossing. Last year’s photos/ videos of it were absolutely insane though.
We eventually got to the place where we were going to camp, but it was swarmed with mosquitos. I was not anticipating hiking more and got hangry pretty quickly. Everything is hard, especially uphill hiking when you are hungry, and have sopping wet, cold feet. Again, thanks to the Spizzwinks for getting me through the extra .75 uphill miles to where we eventually found something good enough to set up camp. I quickly set up, changed into my dry base layers & warm socks, and then fired up the stove and ate as fast as I could bc I was so hungry.
Now I’m happy & warm in my quilt and ready to tackle tomorrow, which will be our last day on trail before Mammoth! The Sierra is beautiful, but I am so ready for town.