Mile 857.7 — 872.3 (14.3 miles)

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Rose: a proper lake swim finally, beautiful forest walk in the afternoon Thorn: mosquitos! Bud: more good weather

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The mosquitos quickly retreated after night fell. I slept alright by myself on the exposed granite knob. The stars were indeed vivid and beautiful.

In the morning I took my time leaving camp. MTR was only half a mile down trail. I ran into Magic Beans and Hurdle on my way into the Ranch. Gibb joined shortly.

What a weird vibe. They’ve removed the public hiker boxes behind closed doors. We had heard this was the place to go if you were short on food; JMTers send a 5-gallon bucket resupply here (at great expense), and they’re always throwing out extra food they can’t fit in their bear cannisters. We had to ask to see the extra food to which MTR staff replied that the food was for “hikers who don’t have any food” (ie buckets that had gotten lost in the mail). We had to beg and explain we were short on food because of the storms. They said they would only give us enough food to get to VVR. Stingy bastards.

So we got a little food from the staff while they watched us like a hawk. Then we loitered for two hours, looking hungry, and waited for JMTers to offer us their extras, which they did after their slow sorting. The MTR staff never stopped watching us.

We had lots of discussion about it afterward. It feels entitled to demand the extra food but at the same time, when we put food in the hiker boxes ourselves, it’s with the intention that it gets circulated through the community. It’s part of the circular giving aspect of the community. It’s especially annoying that MTR covers the food when they change something like $80 to hold your bucket for you, so it costs something like $100 to send your resupply there.

The trail out of MTR was steep switchbacks. Since we left at 10:15am, we were exposed to the warm sun. I broke out the sun umbrella. The ascent up to Selden Pass eased up after that, or at least joined the dappled shade of the fir trees.

The first big lake I came to (Sallie Keyes Lake), I found people swimming. Since it was one of the only lakes I’d seen that wasn’t a barren alpine lake of pure snow melt and the mosquitos were slim, I let the two guys I lunched with talk me into a swim while they packed up. Magic Beans joined me. After days of freezing or too shallow swimming conditions, a proper, full body, breaststroke swim was glorious. We swam out to some rocks further into the lake, got cold from the wind, and swam back. We asked a British guy to take our photo. Hilariously, he took our photo in the lake, but he cropped it too close to capture the stunning scenery.

Afterwards, we stood on top of rocks to drip dry while we alternated eating lunch and swatting at mosquitos.

The pass itself was just another pass.

We descended a beautiful river valley. Wide and open like Wyoming with sparsely spaced trees that let through the golden light and allowed views of the beautiful river. Every river, I just want to fish it. The only problem was that there were multiple creek crossings before reaching camp. Wet shoes aren’t pleasant at camp.

Magic Beans and I camped together close to the turn off for VVR. We set up camp in the gathering twilight. I nicked my thumb between a rock and my tent stake. The mosquitos were atrocious.

I surveyed my food, including what I had gotten from MTR. I had enough food to get me to Mammoth. We debated going to VVR. In the end, we decided our only motivations for going to VVR were beer and the vibes. Not enough reason for a very expensive 15 mile detour. Onward we would go!

The mosquitos were so bad, I ate my dinner while walking circles around camp. I staked my tent to the ground. Thankfully, they disappeared after dark.