Friday Day 69

June 1, 2018

Mile 977-990

Well, today was as bad for me. We slept in–which for me was 6:04am. I quietly packed up so Justin could “catch up” on his own sleep. I think we were hiking just before 8am. I was dreading Kerrick Creek though. Everyone has it hyped up for good reason, although swift at 9am, crossing the log wasn’t horrible. It was wide enough for me and not too high off the top of the water. Although I’m pretty sure during the afternoon melt water would be flowing over the top of that log. I had Justin give me just enough help at the end of the crossing. I needed just a little breathing room which he patiently gave me by holding onto the end of my trekking pole as I finished over. The next “Creek” was more like a waterfall. Each crossing of the rocks was either fast flowing or deep. We had to cross in three different sections, none being better than the last. We both agreed–this Creek was far worse than crossing the log at Kerrick.

Stubblefield Canyon Crossing was next. All places to cross were wide, fast, and deep! Justin and I forded this one together at the same time. I stayed as close to him as possible but the longer I was in the colder and weaker my legs felt. I was in swift deep water up to my hips and it felt like it lasted forever.

Around mile 987 there was still yet another ford at Wide Creek. We had planned to take break at the Ranger station all day. Except that it had taken us all day to get there as it was nearing 4pm. This is unfortunately where I met a rather large group of mosquitos. They went to town on me and I had to put my fleece jacket on just to get a layer of protection against them. I’m not sure how many bites I was subjected to but I’m pretty sure you could connect the dots on my back and make a gnarly constellation.

We hiked just a few more miles to 990 for the night. The campsite isn’t really ideal as there’s still snow piled around. Everything will be wet in the morning and we hope it doesn’t get windy as there’s a partially downed tree near my tent. Awesome.

Tomorrow we will hope for 14 miles. We are running low on food and it’s 26 miles to Sonora Pass/Hwy 108. If we can stay out of the snow we might make some decent miles but if the trail is tucked in the trees all day it’s going to be a soppy snowy melting mess.

In all these days we’ve hardly seen any people. Since we’ve left the Yosemite NP area, we’ve only chatted with 6 other hikers. Today we saw 2 hikers headed southbound who report that snow in the Tahoe-Sonora Pass section was minimal. I hope they are right.