Mile 838 to 860 (6 miles before Selden Pass)

Close your eyes and imagine a dark stone hut built in 1930. Its fire place has been stoned walled and there is only one window, which can’t be opened. Now imagine 12 hikers who have just eaten two week old salami, ramen, and peanut butter. Delicious and caloric? Yes. But more importantly, a master recipe for cutting the cheese, letting one slide or as some more civilized people would say, passing gas.

Over night, the John Muir Hut became ground zero for an epic fart symphony starring Space Jam, Steal, Big Daddy, Fun Dip, Vipr, and even your’s truely. The power of the stench was so great that more than a few hikers elected to cowboy camp outside in the surrounding snow.

Earlier in the evening, Beastie Boy and I had agreed to wake up at 1:00 AM to shot some long exposures of the Milky Way. Beastie woke me up with his infrared light and for a second, I thought I was being attacked by a cyclops. Once I recovered from my initial start, we headed outside. The stars hung like a web of diamonds in the night sky and the Milky Way stretched from the top of a nearby peak across the whole of the sky. Never have I seen it in such detail.

We walked out over the snow and began capturing our shots. After about 45 minutes, we headed back to the hut. We were happy to find it being warmed by all the “natural gas.”

I awoke at 5:30 and Bedazzled, Vipr, Fun Dip, and I started crossing the 6 miles of snow fields by 6:00. Being up so high, the snow refroze and we made great time. After a cold and long river ford at around 8:00, we descended in a valley and made our way to Evolution Creek, one of the most famous fords on the PCT. We elected to do the alternate crossing, which means you cross the river where it has flooded a meadow instead of where the PCT officially crosses the creek.

At the meadow, we repacked our gear to make it as waterproof as possible and set out. After a few smaller fords, we came to the big show. The river was about 50 feet across and looked to be pretty deep in the center. Last week, someone we know who crossed it said it came up to his neck and they had to swim it with their pack. Luckily, it only came up to my waist. The current was fairly strong, but I made it across with no problem. For Fun Dip, the water came up to just below her chest and the current was more of a challenge, pushing her back, but she held it together and crossed successful by herself. 

After so much hype, we were pumped to have crossed Evolution without much of a problem!

We are still trying to get into Mammoth by the 4th of July for Bedazzled so we did a quick food audit at lunch. Bedazzled and I both have 6 days of food, but the sisters only have 4 days. We did some quick math and decided that we needed to cover some ground today in order to have a chance to make it and still have a food buffer in case something unexpected happens. We all agreed to try to do 10 more miles after lunch, which would put us at 22 miles for the day and 850 total trail miles.

Without snow to hinder our footing, we made great time walking through rocky meadows, crossing streams, and passing by giant Sequoias. I had flashbacks to the desert when we covered ground at 3 mph and did 20+ mile days. We all put on the cruise control and knocked the 10 miles out in about 3 hours and 30 minutes with a short break for water. It felt good to stretch the legs.

While walking, we saw a cute little marmot up close and Fun Dip told us about a story she heard of a thru-hiker who put a knife on the end of a trekking pole and stabbed a marmot. This got us talking about running out of food, and Fun Dip declared that the only time you should harm a marmot is if you have no food and are starving. Bedazzled then told us that she would rather stab and eat one of us instead of a marmot. When she was out of earshot, Vipr, Fun Dip, and I agreed to eat Bedazzled first if we run out of food.

We found a nice campsite on the side of a mountain in a grassy meadow. The mosquitoes are out in full force and attempting to penetrate my tent’s mesh, but I told them penetration isn’t allowed.

I used to think that taking a shit outside anywhere you want was a plus to this thru-hiking thing, but now that mosquito season is upon us, I think I will have to put that into the negative column. I just got at least three bites on my bum. What a bummer.