JMT Day 15- Bear Creek Jct to Seldon Pass to Sallie Keyes Lakes

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.

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.

Marie Lake

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!

Headed up to Selden Pass

Hot dayum Marie Lake is gorgeous even under rain clouds!

Selden Pass, elevation 10,898 ft

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!

Heart Lake

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

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!

Camp at Sallie Keyes Lake, elevation 10,208 ft

JMT Day 14- VVR to Bear Creek Junction

July 29, 2014

We woke sort of early with the intent to leave VVR by 9:00. We all paid our tabs, used the flush toilets one last time and headed out. VVR was offering rides to the Bear Creek Trailhead for $10 per person. That would be a total of $40 for the 4 of us. We all thought that was outrageous and we walked the short and easy 2 miles down the road to the trailhead.

We chose to start at Bear Creek Trail so we could avoid the 2000+ foot climb up Bear Ridge. If we wanted to catch Bear Ridge, we would have had to hike back to the JMT via the 7 mile trail we did the previous day. We were not interested in doing that! Bear Creek was a gain of 1200 feet which was enough for us.

We went up, up, up in the hot sun in the morning, then down, down, down to Bear Creek. The rest of the day was mostly up. We followed the creek all day, which was beautiful! Lots of little waterfalls and cascades. One of those perfect looking rivers! The flies and skeeters were horrible at a few points along the trail! I ran out of bug spray just as we came out of the worst of it. Skeeter swamp! Thank goodness for the headnet, I wore it all day until I got into the tent at night! We talked to some north bound hikers who went through this area a couple weeks before us and said they had the worst day ever during this section because the bugs were so thick! Although the bugs were still bad when we came through, it was obvious that they had subsided quite a bit because they were only bad in patches, not the entire 10 mile stretch!

Bear Creek

We watched the eerie smoke from the wildfire roll up the valley towards us around 2:00 and we breathed campfire for the rest of the day with no visibility beyond about 100 feet up. No views of anything once the smoke rolled in :(

Clear on the left, smoke on the right

Even after a rest day yesterday, I felt tired today. My ankle was hurting the last couple miles, my feet still hurt no matter what and my knees hurt for the downhill. After 2 weeks on trail, I've come to the conclusion that this is just the norm for my body. I feel strong, which is good, but my parts and pieces just constantly hurt. Oh well.

Daveed and I had a moment during our first break of the day. We were sitting by a beautiful bend in the creek with a perfect rock shelf to sit on and dangle your feet in the water. He had been in a funk all morning, was the last one ready to leave camp, was grumpy and overall just not psyched. After we chatted for awhile, he was mostly back to normal and ready to carry on. The trail does funny things. Nothing about what we're doing is easy- the trail exploits any and all weakness/emotion/insecurities, and being tired and worn down only magnifies them. It would be so much easier to just stay put and rest for a couple days. To really, fully re-charge our batteries. But here we are, after one rest day, back on the trail. Trail life is wonderful, don't get me wrong, but it's not easy. I'm glad we have each other to help pick up and carry on. Daveed always has a smile or a tail wag to encourage me to keep going when he knows my feet and ankle are killing me. I'm glad that I can also encourage him to keep going when it feels like staying put would be easier.

We set up camp about a mile past the junction where Bear Creek Trail meets back with the JMT. We're camped by a gorgeous spot by the creek, the sound of the rushing water lulling me to sleep. The rock shelf/creek bed is a dream- gray granite striped with black, flat and shallow with water sliding down it like a water slide. The beauty I've seen out here is really something to behold. A simple creek bed stopped me dead in my tracks! I'm so lucky to be here.

Camp near Lake Italy trail junction, elevation 9338 ft

JMT Day 13- Rest Day at VVR

July 28, 2014


We slept in a little bit and had breakfast in the café with the crew. Then after sorting our resupply we decided to stay and have a rest day. Daveed's foot is feeling better, but we are both glad to have a rest day...especially after yesterday and how bad my knees and feet hurt. We were all sitting around outside the store hanging out and delaying the departure of Jackie Sue and Amelia. Jackie Ray made the tough decision to stay on trail and finish without Jackie Sue. It was sad and hard, but in the end Jackie Sue understood. Enter Tiphane from Switzerland. We met Tiphane the night before, she had been at VVR for about 2 or 3 days, resting and ultimately trying to figure out a way to catch a ride to San Francisco because she had decided to quit the trail. She was actually going to ride back to San Fran with Amelia, then met us, and ended up partnering up with Jackie Ray. It couldn't have worked out better. It was really sad and unfortunate that Jackie Sue's injuries forced her to leave but it worked out perfectly that Tiphane and Jackie Ray were able to partner up and continue on together. Tiphane was hiking the trail solo and was mentally tired, lonely, and a bit scared. She flew all the way here from Switzerland to hike the trail and when she saw that Jackie Sue physically could not walk and had no choice but to leave, she reconsidered her reasons for leaving and decided to stay.

Jackie Ray and Tiphane will hike out of VVR with us tomorrow, I'm looking forward to having their company and we'll probably be with them for the next couple weeks since we have similar itineraries.

We said goodbye to Amelia and Jackie Sue... as a closing sentiment, Amelia played a song on her flute that she said she played when she first set out on the JMT....it was really beautiful and touching and something I would never do. Which made it so much more special to me. I was glad to have met her and her crew. It was so sad to say goodbye! I was very thankful that both Daveed and I were fine, healthy and able to continue on the trail. I wold have been absolutely crushed if we would have had to leave the trail. After planning it for so long, dreaming about it, making it the central focus of our trip, making it our summer goal to complete it, and falling in love with it- the thought of having to leave without finishing brought tears to my eyes. This would turn out to be the one and only time I cried "on trail". As I stood listening to Amelia play her flute, all of these thoughts and emotions rushed over me and I started to cry. Daveed came over and gave me a big hug, as surprised by my tears as I was. He knows I'm not much of a crier, I'm a pretty tough cookie, but he understood just as much as I did how sad it would be to have to leave the trail early.


Smoke from the El Portal wildfire near Yosemite rolled into VVR mid-morning, snowing ash down on us and smoking us out. Around noon it started raining hard and it helped to clear out the smoke. It rained the whole rest of the day and we hung out at a picnic table under a roof that's attached to the store/café. The temps dropped and with us just sitting around all day we were cold! We drank a lot of hot beverages and ate a lot of hot food to try and stay warm. We tried to eat as much of our extra food as we could and made a respectable dent in it. It was a treat to sit around and rest all day and I took advantage of the opportunity to go to bed early.


Hopefully the rain will clear overnight so we can dry everything out and have a dry hiking day tomorrow. It was nice to rest and relax after dragging yesterday, hoping to feel good tomorrow. Next resupply is in 3 days at Muir Trail Ranch.

JMT Day 12- Silver Pass Lake to Vermillion Valley Resort (VVR)

July 27, 2014

Beautiful morning on Silver Pass Lake, very calm with gorgeous reflections of the mountains!

Daveed headed down to the lake to get water before heading out

We had a nice breakfast with good company and hot beverages. Then is was down, down, down. Through several meadows with lots of pretty flowers. I followed Jackie Sue's lead and took a bunch of flower pictures and this is the one and only picture that mostly turned out, my camera skillz are pathetic:

I didn't even look at the screen when I took this picture, I was too tired to bend down with my pack on to get the upward angle, so I just pointed the camera "up" and ironically, it mostly turned out and I wasn't even really trying!

Here's one that didn't turn out so good...I could never get the macro setting on the camera to cooperate with me! These purples were one of my favorite flowers on the JMT. My other favorite flowers will be featured in an equally bad photo when we get to Heart Lake in about a week :)

After what seemed like a long time, we stopped at a creek to take a break, and after consulting the map, found out we'd only gone 4 miles! Woof. Today was a rough day for all of us for some reason. I think it was probably the hardest day on trail for me, tougher than day 2. Only about 11 miles but all downhill.

Down into the valley we go!

Down, down, down

This cascade was SO pretty. I stood and stared at it for a long time, it's too bad it's so hard to see in the pic!

When we reached the cut off trail to VVR we thought WOOHOO!! Only 5 miles to go! It was the longest 5 miles of my life. And it turns out it's more like 7 miles. We walked next to the almost completely dry Lake Thomas Edison- dry because of the several year drought that's been such a problem in California. The lake is man made and the dam has been open to supply water to the cities to the west, like San Francisco, San Diego and even Los Angeles.

The dry lake bed of Lake Edison

Still cheesin even though my feet and knees were killin me. The giant calf looks pretty strong in this pic!

We trudged: feet, knees, legs super tired and sore. Then we got to another trail sign that said 1.5 miles to go. Still felt like the longest mile ever. So tired. Feet hurt. Knees hurt so so bad. Finally, we walked the final gravel road stretch- passing the two 80lb pack girls who saw the look on my face and said "it's only 200 yards that way!"- and made it to VVR- thank goodness! I immediately took my boots off letting our a little cry when I took my first steps in my crocks, my poor feet! Then went straight into the store to find out what the food situation was. The café opened at 5:00 and it was 4:30. We found a spot to set up our tent and then were first in line at the café :)

Vermillion Valley Resort, aka Disneyland for Hikers

Arriving at VVR was hiker heaven. Super nice people. Free beer/beverage upon arrival. Amazing food in the café- fancy! Super tasty and so fancy for a little backwoods place! Fanciest salad I've ever had! Felt so much better once we arrived: dinner, hard cider, pie, showers, laundry. Felt SOOO much better! Feet and knees still hurt and I was walking very stiffly with a slight limp, but so glad to be sitting down!

Amelia was at VVR!! What the heck?! We said goodbye to her at Red's Meadow when her and Carly headed out a day ahead of us. Unfortunately Amelia is leaving the trail due to mega blisters on her feet...12-13 of them :( Her sister is coming to pick her up tonight/tomorrow. And unfortunately Jackie Sue is also leaving the trail :( She hurt her ankle real bad and can't even walk! :(  A nice hiker that we'd been leapfrogging with since Red's Meadow (I think his name was Jerome) carried Jackie Sue's pack for her the rest of the way to VVR :( I feel terrible for her, it's so sad. And Daveed is complaining that his foot hurts...a day of injuries unfortunately. Hopefully Daveed's foot will feel better in the morning.

After we all ate dinner, it was fire time. There is a big fire pit where everyone hung out for the rest of the night. There were a couple of crusty older guys telling us all what to do or what not to do-- all unsolicited advice. I felt bad for the Jackies as they were both struggling with the reality that Jackie Sue had to leave the trail and Jackie Ray wanted to continue on and finish. The old guys were pretty insensitive about it all. I got sick of listening to their bullshit and went to bed.


I forgot to take a picture of our campsite, elevation 7902 ft

JMT Day 11- Lake Virginia to Silver Pass to Silver Pass Lake

July 26, 2014

Another sunny, hot, dry and dusty day. It was hard to leave Lake Virginia...the wind had all but died overnight and the lake was calm and glassy. So beautiful!

Filtering water from the calm and clear Lake Virginia

Hiking out

Lake Virginia looking to the south

Down, down, down to Fish Creek, then up, up, up to Squaw Lake. My feet were killing me when we arrived at the steel bridge at Fish Creek. We stopped to take a break in the shade and had Snicker bars. The steel bridge was the first real bridge we've crossed so far, everything else has been logs or rocks or a combination of both.

Clear skies today

Headed down the switchbacks to Fish Creek

That's Fish Creek at the bottom of the valley

The steel bridge at Fish Creek

We caught up to the Jackies at the bottom of the switchbacks before Squaw Lake. They stopped to take a break and have some lunch. We took a short water break and then headed up the switchbacks with them. We stopped at Squaw Lake for lunch and I sat on a perfect rock to dangle my feet in the water. Daveed walked in the water around the whole lake and was happy as a clam! Most of the lake had a wonderfully soft, sandy bottom. I sat and chilled and ate lunch while I watched him walk around. I even got to bask in the sun in my sports bra while my shirt dried in the sun and wind, what a treat! It felt so wonderful to lounge by the lake!

Daveed having fun walking around the shallow and relatively warm Squaw Lake

Squaw Lake as viewed from the trail heading up to Silver Pass

After our lovely break at Squaw Lake, it was more hot and dry up, up, up to Silver Pass (10,754 ft). The view from the top of the pass was great! We could see all the way back to Ritter and Banner Peaks in the distance which is where we were 4-5 days ago! It was really neat to see how far we'd come.

Headed up to Silver Pass

The more pronounced peaks in the distance are Banner and Ritter!

At the top of Silver pass 10,754 feets

Looking south from Silver Pass, so beautiful!

We met up with the Jackies again just on the south side of Silver Pass which is where we ended up camping, at Silver Pass Lake. We heard voices calling out to us but couldn't see them until we were close by. They were hanging out on the little tree tuft of an island next to the lake. The views are so beautiful! We're camped at our highest elevation so far, around 10,400 ft. It's neat that we've hiked up this far, no driving in a car! We started at around 4000 ft in the Valley and now we've been at 10,000+ ft on the regular! Feeling good and loving the views.

All 4 of us went down to the lake to get water for dinner, turns out the shore is sandy! We chilled with our feets in the water for awhile and then went back to camp to have dinner together.

The Jackies are going to come to Vermillion Valley Resort with us tomorrow because Jackie Ray wants breakfast at the café :) Glad they're going to hang with us! I'm looking forward to our resupply, a shower and laundry!

Silver Pass Lake, we camped on that little tuft of an island with the trees on it

Straight chilling with Jackie Sue

Alpineglow

This looked so much cooler in real life, I wish I had camera skillz. The clouds were pink and reflected pink onto the mountains in the distance, this scene was so, so pretty!

From my trail journal:
"Prettiest and most scenic views from a camp spot so far. Becoming a pro at farmer's blows...allergies like whoa."

Camp at Silver Pass Lake, elevation 10,400 ft