Camping by the Water

A Small Giant Sequoia

 Biscuits and Gravy for brekkie, one of my favs, and to top it off I order an egg, they don't come however and gotta ask the waitress, who we now know quite well, to check, the cook has taken a quick break so it's not too quick, she makes up for it by coming back with an extra free egg, not too bad.

A large group of hikers has gathered outside, we decide to weigh our packs while waiting for the taxi, my comes in at 34 pounds, ouch this is the heaviest pack I've ever carried, and we're relatively light, at MTR there'll be an extra two days food.

Among the hikers waiting are some Forest Service Service workers, they're geared up with obvious maintenance tools like saws, axes, etc, attached to their packs, looks like they're out for a few days, and they're not dressed like rangers at all, there clothes look very work related, stained and a bit ragged, so it's a bit of a shock when one asks for our permits, at first I think he's joking, he's actually a bit apologetic about the whole thing but does insist, and I gotta go back to the room to get my pack.

A large crowd of hikers spills off the taxi and onto the connector trail back to the JMT, there's a German woman with a huge camera who keeps bouncing around for different shot angles, and two other Germans with huge packs, this seems to be a trend, almost every German backpacker we've seen has had a huge pack, dwarfing ours. There are also two young Russians who we saw back at VVR with the parents, these two don't look particularly happy, wondering if having their parents around made them a bit embarrassed. One of them seems to have some foot issues, he keeps bandaging them up.

It's a long slow climb up to Selden Pass, it's a mere 10,900', no big deal and feeling energized after a nice break and good food at VVR, unlike after Mammoth Lakes, which seemed to suck the energy outa me.

Our Campsite Overlooked a Beautiful Stream Convergence

We stop for a bit of a break, there a 2 hikers resting by a log at the Bear Creek trail junction so we chat for a minute, they're PCT flip floppers, started Northbound and got stuck by all the snow in the Sierras so had to skip North and come back to finish up in the Sierras now nearly all the snow has gone. There's a small black box sitting on the trail, it's a charger, quite heavy but don't wanna leave it to spill toxic junk out into the wilderness, so decide to take it on the MTR and perhaps leave it there, we should have enough charge for our phones to get through the 11 days from there to the Whitney Portal.
We pass a large group of Koreans passing Northbound, I sense they're Korean by their accents and by how friendly they act and have to ask of course, and it's so.

We stop to bathe feet in cold water and have a snack and a nap, we hear that's lotsa folks are headed to Upper Bear Creek Meadows for the night, we come to a great spot where 3 creeks seem to converge, there's rushing water everywhere, and the outflow from Lake Italy crosses the JMT to join Bear Creek, the crossing at the trail is a little trickly, there's a dearth of rock hopping opportunities to get across with dry feet so we look around for alternatives.

There's a treadway leading up stream so follow it for a bit and see a spot with a small water slide that can be jumped, and then a slide across a log where the stream has split in two completes the dry foot crossing. Other hikers arrive and try to figure out how to cross and we direct them upstream to the dry crossing.

There are gooseberries and blue berries by the streams, we pick a bunch to load up our oatmeal for the morning brekkie. Dinner is Pho by the fire, we're below the 10,000' fire restriction and there's plenty of wood just up the nearby hill.