Day 66
Start: Vermillion Valley Resort
Finish: Silver Pass Creek
Daily Mileage: 10.1
PCT Mile: 883.4
I only slept 3-4 hours last night. There was generator noise and lights and it was warmer than on trail, but I tend to sleep worse in towns for some reason.
We grabbed good sized breakfasts with plates piled high with food. We were only aiming for 10 miles today, so there was no particular rush to get on the trail. The only thing prompting was the impending heat.
Cookie Monster and I left around 9 and went back to the PCT on a different trail than we came in on. No point climbing back up to the ridge on the trail we came down to just immediately descend to meet where the trail around the coast of Lake Edison hits the PCT.
Unfortunately, the first half of the trail around the lake had recently burned. That let the sun straight through and it was a warm traverse. The lake is a dammed lake, and the water level was pretty low for some reason. I’ve never really liked the look of these lakes with their bathtub rings devoid of life. But we didn’t even see the lake most of the time.
Soon enough though we left the lake behind and followed Mono Creek which feeds it back up to the PCT.
Then the day became about water. We traced tributaries of Mono Creek upwards. There was quite a lot of water flowing in the creek, and many torrents of water pounding their way through the rocks, or shooting down slabs of rock.
With water comes crossings. I did manage to keep my feet dry for a while with some aggressive leaping and crossing a wobbly log that I probably should have passed on, but I enjoy those mini challenges, even if in the end it doesn’t matter if I get my feet wet or not.
Heading up the North Fork Mono Creek we escaped the thick forest and the trees thinned to show us our return to the granite of the Sierra. In the distance we saw quite a cascade pouring down the face of one of the mountains. Little did we know that we would be getting up close and personal with that cascade.
My streak of dry feet came to an end crossing the North Fork. I did contemplate taking a big leap between rocks to clear it, but there was significant flow below if I would have missed, so I just scrambled to a shallow crossing instead.
The trail was going up aggressively at this point, constantly switchbacking. The day was warm even at our elevation and I always have less energy after a town stop, even a short one like we had. Those big town meals do me in I think.
After going up for a while, we came to the very cascade that we had spotted from below. It was a raging torrent of water pounding its way down rocks on a steep incline. It was almost a waterfall where the trail crossed, and there was spray splashing onto us. It was quite a powerful scene, and pretty unique to cross so close to a cascade like that.
Then we were shortly rounding the top of the rise into a valley with a meadow. The snow picked up, and it looked doubtful that we could have a dry camp further on, so we stopped at 2:30. There is supposed to be quite a bit of snow ahead of us, so we will hit that tomorrow morning when it is more firm and we can walk right over top of it.
We had the afternoon to kill so we dried our gear and napped. We seemed to be in the territory of the local marmot, and it circled us and kept striking poses on rocks. It seemed to want a photoshoot, so I obliged. It eventually clambered high up a rock face to its home, shortly before we retired as well.
