(Click on any photo to enlarge) Today was painful. Well- really only the last 5 miles were painful. We intended on doing only 13-14 miles today as we have heavily laden packs and Seldon Pass to deal with right out of MTR. Things don't always go as planned. We left MTR at our usual departure time and started the climb up to Seldon Pass. 3100 ft vert in 7 miles. Not too bad. After we reached Sallie Keyes Lake we stopped for breakfast by a snow fed creek.
Breakfast is always the same for Christi and I- powdered milk mixed with cold mountain water, granola and dehydrated blueberries. After chowing and taking a couple of photos we reached Seldon in about an hour.
Down past Marie Lake and onto Rosemarie Meadow where the mosquitoes were out in full force. We wasted no time passing through Upper Bear Creek Meadow and continued along Bear Creek. We stopped for a swim break on Bear Creek. Funk found a small waterfall to lay under. It was good to take a break as it rejuvenated us to continue on. We figured we'd go a couple more miles and call it quits for the day. After walking for a bit longer it was becoming obvious that we weren't going to find anything as there was no level ground anywhere. We searched and searched for a site but had no luck. So we just kept walking.
Before we knew it we were descending the 72 switchbacks of Bear Ridge, well past our days proposed finish point. I remember this climb from last year. It sucked. I was counting switchbacks and just got fed up after 50. I was happy we were going down it at 8:00pm instead of going up. Finally at about dark we rolled into Quail Meadows, exhausted, and hastily made camp. Even though it was pitch black out we all took a dip into the river to get he trail grime off and to reduce any inflammation in our legs. I fell asleep as soon as I was under my quilt. We ended up doing 20.5 miles with our heaviest packs of the trip. Tomorrow will definitely be a short day!
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