July 30, 2014
Cold, rain and skeeters today. Hiked in the rain all day until we got to camp then it started to clear a little and eventually got partly sunny. The skeeters were bad again- swarming the only parts of us not covered in rain gear: our faces. They were the worst when we would slow down to cross a creek, focusing on rock hopping and not falling in the water! It was difficult to keep my balance on the rocks and logs while swatting the swarm! I couldn't wear the headnet because it would get saturated with rain water and then I couldn't see! We had to settle with just swatting them away and trying to keep a super fast pace to outrun them.
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| Rain, rain go away |
Climbed about 1500 feet today. Stopped at beautiful Marie Lake for lunch. Even under rain clouds she was so pretty. Just as we arrived and started looking for a sheltered spot to eat lunch, we spotted Tiphane and Jackie Ray headed up the switchbacks to Seldon Pass and waved to them. We couldn't find any cover from the rain next to the lake so we just plopped down on some decent sitting rocks and took out our bear cans, leaving everything else in our packs and covered with our rain covers to try and keep stuff dry. I was disappointed that we didn't get to see Marie Lake under clear skies but still enjoyed our time next to the lake. As the rain eased up for a bit, Merle came out of hiding! He was all wet and moving slow. He paused to look at us as we walked past, then continued doing his marmot business.
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| Marie Lake |
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| Marie Lake as viewed from the beginning of the switchbacks up to Selden Pass |
From Marie Lake it was only about 400-500 feet up to Seldon Pass (10,898 ft), which was no big deal since we took a lunch break right before we started up. We stopped at the top of the pass to take a good look around and to snap a few pictures. Just over the pass was tiny and cute Heart Lake- which really is shaped like a heart!
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| Headed up to Selden Pass |
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| Hot dayum Marie Lake is gorgeous even under rain clouds! |
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| Selden Pass, elevation 10,898 ft |
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| Looking south from the pass |
We loved the valley leading to Sallie Keyes, it reminded us of Lord of the Rings scenes. The contrast of the white and dark gray granite was dramatic and the shapes of the rocks and columns was something unique to the area. Very cool. I wish I had better photography skills as the pictures I took do not do the scenery justice!
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| Heart Lake |
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| These were my other favorite flowers on trail, I think they are a variety of Columbine. Saw these beauties at the outlet of Heart Lake |
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| Sallie Keyes Lakes |
We arrived in camp the earliest EVER- 3:00! Woot! What to do?? No hurrying to put the tent up, filter water, cook and eat dinner! We lounged around with Tiphane and Jackie Ray, snacked, ate dinner #1 and then I laid down in the tent and napped a little to get away from the skeeteers. While I was napping, Daveed was looking at the map and our mileage itinerary. He found an 8 mile discrepancy in our upcoming section between the MTR resupply and our resupply in Independence. Crap. How did that happen?! After some thinking, we figured it out. I had used the JMT guidebook and the JMT atlas to plan our days. The JMT guidebook includes the final 8 miles from the summit of Whitney to Whitney Portal in the overall total JMT mileage, which is not officially part of the JMT. The JMT officially starts/ends on the summit. The JMT atlas map we used on trail does not account for the final 8 miles in the overall mileage total for the JMT. So there is the 8 mile discrepancy. We looked at our upcoming days and sadly concluded that we could not realistically take the planned rest day in Evolution Basin, instead we will have to hike that day. 8 miles is a nearly full day of hiking for us. We already upped the miles for the other days on this stretch prior to leaving Wisconsin: we could not carry enough food for 8 days so we re-distributed one day's miles into the other days, cutting out one day's worth of food. Now we had to re-distribute the unaccounted for 8 miles and skip our rest day. Not a huge deal, but disappointing to have to skip our rest day. Lesson learned: use whatever map/atlas you're going to use on trail to do the actual specific mileage planning!
Tomorrow we go to Muir Trail Ranch for another resupply. The 6 miles we did today felt good and we made good time considering we stopped several times and had several creek crossings. My ank is feeling better today, glad it was a short day so it didn't get worked too hard. Lots of fish jumping in the lake at bug hour while Daveed filtered water. I stood on the bank and watched the little trout cruise around and eat their dinner. Really neat to watch...nature!
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| Camp at Sallie Keyes Lake, elevation 10,208 ft |
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