Day 60 – Silver Pass – Jill and RT PCT

June 9th

We woke up early enough this morning to avoid the swarms of mosquitos that plagued us last night — apparently they can’t handle the cold. Sadly our tent was completely drenched from condensation so we rolled and stuffed everything as best we could without touching the tent walls. I have a trash bag that lines my pack to keep things waterproof so we wrapped the sopping wet tent in the trash bag to keep it from dripping on me. There was no way we were waiting around in mosquito valley for the tent to dry this morning.

We started moving around seven and had a surprise creek ford within a mile of our camp. A ford is when you have to walk through the water, shoes optional, as opposed to a crossing where you can hop over rocks or walk on a log (or luck out with the occasional bridge). We both took our shoes and socks off and walked though the freezing creek to the other side. I have a rash on both feet from walking in wet shoes after Muir pass so my game plan for today was to keep my socks and shoes dry.

We had a few more easy miles before starting a thousand foot climb. There were several fun creek crossings where I leaped over rocks and sauntered across logs while Tomtit utilized his waterproof boots and walked wherever he pleased. Then we came up to an unassuming stream where I misplaced a jump and my foot slid right off a rock into the water. I had to walk the rest of the uphill with wet shoes.

After climbing to the top of the hill we had switchbacks down to the trail junction to Vermillion Valley Resort. VVR is a popular destination for skiers and they accept packages for hikers. We also heard they have excellent food but that it is expensive. We chose not to hike the extra miles to the ferry that takes you to VVR and to instead continue on to Mammoth. We stopped at the bottom of the switchbacks to dry the tent and have lunch. On the way down I saw my first bear in the wild! It was small (maybe a young bear) and very golden yellow. I think it was still a black bear even though it wasn’t black. Tomtit missed it but he has seen a few bears in the wild so he didn’t feel left out.

A six mile 3000 foot gain to Silver pass awaited us after lunch. The first thing we came to after packing up was another large creek. Tomtit splashed his way across easily while I scouted up the bank for a possible rock crossing. I watched a hiker who had just come from VVR as he attempted to cross over a rock path. His wooden hiking stick snapped and he fell butt first into the creek. I was determined to not hike with wet feet again today so I went back to where Tomtit had crossed and took off my shoes and socks. I had both shoes in my left hand and both hiking poles in my right when I started across. The water wasn’t deep but I didn’t anticipate how slippery the rocks were. I lost my balance to the left and since I was carrying my shoes I didn’t have a stick for support. My foot slammed between two rocks and I dunked my shoes and socks into the creek. The rush of self pity that comes from being slapped in the face by irony hit me and I started to cry. I got out of the creek with angry tears rolling down my face and Tomtit raced over to see what had happened. I threw my shoes down on the ground (but I apologized later — it wasn’t their fault) and kept sobbing as I told him what happened. As I explained the whole thing it started sounding funny and soon enough we were laughing. I guess everyone has their days. My right foot had a small bruise on the side and my left pinky toe was bleeding, but it was really my pride that hurt the most. I put neosporin and a bandaid on my toe, popped a couple of ibuprofen, and wrung out my socks. We still had the pass to climb and we were losing daylight.

The climb up was very beautiful and had a lot of stairs. Tomtit and I crushed the miles and got to the top by five o’clock. We cruised down the other side hoping to make some more miles before stopping — we are really looking forward to food in Mammoth Lakes and were discussing pasta in detail while hiking. We ended up passing Salamander and Treebeard where they had camped for the evening. It was good to see them and catch up : )