Day 58, Slow and Steady

Part 2, The Sierra Nevada, Day 58

Slow and Steady 

Miles: 17.12

PCT Mile: 862.33

I was woken up throughout the night by hard rain. By morning, the skies had somewhat cleared and we were all relieved. My tent was still soaked and dirty, but that was nothing new. I planned to hike three miles up and over Selden Pass and dry my stuff out in the sun. I was just glad the rain had stopped, because another day of rain would have put all of us in a bad situation. The hike was so cool as I passed numerous alpine lakes.

The water was so clear and I could see countless fish swimming around. 

After a few false summits, I reached the top of Selden Pass, a much more subtle pass than the previous high passes, and I noticed the sky was once again filling with storm clouds. Where the hell is Summer at?!

I was hiking with KC and we found a nice sunny spot on some rocks to dry our tents out. 

We made some coffee and waited about an hour for a thorough drying. It was so nice to have a dry tent. Mr. and Mrs. Smith showed up and dried their tents, and we all headed downhill toward Bear Creek. 

Our next move was to cross Bear Creek, a dangerous ford most years, but nearly thigh deep today. I walked right through it with my shoes on. No big deal. Some of the shorter hikers had some difficulty, but the ford was a piece of cake. 

Here's Hummingbird crossing it. 

On the other side, we all waited for over an hour for the final member of the group. This was our second long break of the day. That's one thing about hiking in a group; you have to make compromises. I was itching to go, and apparently so was Shepherd, because he took off down the trail. I followed soon after. We still had 13 miles to go and it was 1 pm. 

Hours of mindless hiking passed and I came across this sign on the trail:

I should have destroyed it before the others saw it, but I didn't know it's power. We all sat right down on the trail and used our phones to go online. I finished any online business I had in 5 minutes, but this is what everyone else looked like for one and a half hours:

I get it though; we'd been in the wild for 7 days and people want to update their social networks and what not. Personally, I'm out here to escape all that in a way. This was the third long break of the day, and I couldn't sit still, so I hiked on. 

Again, the skies started to fill with angry clouds and raindrops fell. 

I had KC take this epic pic of me against the dark sky:

Check out the sky; it was looked pretty cool and dark. I am getting tired of dark clouds though. 

Right before camp, I was following Shepherd across this creek and I slipped and fell in. Everyone laughed, including me, even though my leg was wet. 

We found a great camp and set up our tents. 

We had a fire and cooked our food. The sky cleared up for a bit and looked awesome.

We were all pretty excited since we only had one more day until a town day. We mostly talk about food. I read and slept early to get ready for a big day tomorrow.