We got up the morning of the 11th late as we had such a short day into Vermillion Valley Resort and enjoyed our breakfast and coffee with the rising sun. We had just enough food for the morning and were in for a lunch at VVR, so we thought.

The walk itself wasn’t bad but our GPS misled us on the mileage and it turned out we had an additional nine miles. We were gonna be hungry for a bit as lunch at VVR stops at two. As we were walking to the resort without food or water, Spoons was walking towards us with some cokes and Gatorades. He had managed to catch the early ferry the VVR as he was camped closer to the launch and surprised us.

We arrived at VVR and were promptly greeted by Meg who seemed to be one of the owners. The place itself was great, situated on the shore of Lake Thomas Edison. They had a free camp ground, cabins for rent, boats and other things. John Muir Trail (JMT) hikers also filled the site along with outdoorsmen and families vacationing. There was cold beer, and overly sized portions of food which is about all you could want. We spent the day eating and drinking and went to bed as soon as we could.

When we woke up, we had ourselves the heartiest of breakfasts and packed up our things. We were all taking the ferry back. This saved us a nine mile hike but costed us $20. It would have been worth it just for the ride. We drove deep into a valley where the ferry dropped off all of the hikers and picked up those ready to head to VVR. We then began our hike with a pretty steep climb up to Silver Pass. We planned on 14 miles and the hike was spotted with great places to relax and enjoy the running river. After a couple of breaks, we had our first real rain on the trail. It was just sprinkles but with some cold wind can get quite uncomfortable.

At this point, we’re hiking with Sir James, Tomage, icy, Rummage, Fly Lord and spoons. We made it our 14 miles to the beautiful Lake Virginia. Just had some dinner and we’re all going to be up early in the morning to get into Mammoth around noon. Looking forward to our bed in the evening.

Happy trails…