Day 50 – The Race to Vermillion Valley
Originally published on Mason Hikes the PCT 2017.
Mileage: 16 to VVR!
Last night, we camped at an abnormally warm lake at above 10,000 feet, so we only had 700 feet of elevation gain to go to get to the top of Selden Pass. We got an early start so that we could get to the pass and Bear Creek early, which also meant that I would potentially have time to run to the ferry in the afternoon so I could pick up my packages from Mono Hot Springs. Niiiiiice!
The pass was basically a joke, with one mile of snow on either side and no hard parts, so within an hour, we were at the top and ready to get down to Bear Creek. We skied down fairly quickly since it was an easy trail, and got our first look at Bear Creek.
This was only one fork, so we hiked down further to the official crossing, where we found stone arrows pointing us downstream. Following them, we found a section where the creek split into three smaller creeks, so we decided to cross the first two small ones and look for a crossing for the bigger third section. We found a giant downed tree, but some people weren’t comfortable getting across it (Flame was across it instantly), so I decided to try crossing slightly downstream using the log to break the current to make sure we could all do it. It was thigh deep and no problem, so the rest followed and we safely crossed one of the “wilder” creek crossings on the PCT! Go team!
We crossed a few other tributaries that were no problem, especially since our feet were already soaked. Once you hit a certain point, you really don’t care about your wet feet anymore and you just walk through anything.
Example A
At this point, it was about 10AM and with some careful calculations, I realized that EVERYBODY could make the ferry today, not just me. We needed to do 2 mph to make sure we got there in time, but that’s easily doable when there’s no snow on the ground. I told everyone and we decided to go for it, so we started heading up then down to get into Vermillion Valley.
With everyone on board with the plan, we hiked like crazy and made it to the ferry launch point a full hour ahead of time. With that kind of downtime, there’s only one thing to do: swim! The water and the views were amazing, but once the boat came, it was time to visit what we had heard described as “hiker paradise”.
The boat ride was amazing and we got to see all of the awesome mountains and cliffs around the lake before making it to shore and being indoctrinated into the ways of VVR. Sandy, our wonderful guide, answered all of our questions before setting us free to get our free first beer. Aww yeah! 👍🏼🍺
We opted not to get dinner at the restaurant because it’s really pricey, but we drank lots of beers and ate lots of awful snacks I bought (key lime pie twist and shouts = BAD) after cooking the last of the food we had left.
BIG NEWS: I finally finished my first fuel canister!! I’ve used the same canister since Campo, which is absolutely insane. My Jetboil and my cooking methods are apparently very efficient and I made it 50 days of cooking once or twice a day with one canister of fuel. 😮
All gone 😦
After dinner, we sat by the fire and listened to some pretty good guitar before calling it a night. Our plan is to zero here tomorrow and get everything done and then disband as a team. 😢 Savage is leaving the trail to start her first real job, I’m speeding up to try to finish California, and the rest are potentially splitting up as well. We’ve had a great run and we’ve all helped keep each other safe in some crazy conditions, so I’m glad I joined such an awesome crew for some of the most difficult parts of the trail. I’ll see the three who are staying on trail when they get to Washington, and we’ll be visiting Fritz and the Swiss boys in Hawaii and Switzerland respectively at some point. Sounds like a pretty good plan!