Day 83 Miles 882.7-902.6

Total: 19.9

Woke up to the roaring of the water all around me. In my sleepy confusion I thought someone was calling me when my alarm went off around 4am. I had my coffee and oatmeal and then got ready. When we were all ready we took off. In .3 miles we had a crossing at the bottom of a waterfall. it wasn’t deep but you’d get misted from it.

We then did a bit of switchback climbing to a nice view before entering a snowy meadow. We then transitioned into patches of snow and rocks.

We crossed a stream on a big log then had to jump to a rock. Martin crossed first and insisted on taking out packs which did make it much easier to make the move. We continued to wind our way up the trail and various snow patches. We then popped out on a big field of rock and snow before making our way up to the pass. The snow is melting so it forms very uncomfortable lumps to walk on.

The pass was much smaller than the others and we didn’t even need our spikes.

There was a gentle snow traverse to the pass and we sat and had a snack before realizing we still had to go up to the high point.

We just had a little more snowy switchbacks to go until the top. We stayed briefly at the top, coming across three hikers we had seen the day before and then started our ascent.

I did some bumpy glissading on the way down and hiked the rest of the way. The snow was pretty annoying and slushy and post holes were frequent.

We passed another couple we had been seeing and another female hiker named Burrito. I chatted with Burrito a little bit on the way down. She’s from La but been living in Austin TX, her husband is coming out to visit her in Yosemite and they are gonna do a super chill loop.

Right before a climb Sparks, Martin, Burrito and I took a small break. We all put in some music and took the climb at our own pace.

We all met up at Virginia Lake where we took some polar plunges and had a nice long lunch break. We played frisbee and hacky sack and just relaxed in the sun.

I left just ahead of Sparks and Martin. I put in music and wanted to cruise the 9.8 to our campsite. as I left a dark storm cloud started to roll in over the lake so I hastened my pace just in case. There was some snowy patches to hike through to get down to another lake.

As I hiked around that lake I could see dark clouds coming from the other direction. But where I was going was nice and sunny.

I hiked through a meadow and had a couple more climbs that I pushed through.

I got to our campsite and relaxed, got water and set up my tent. One of the couples we had passed camped there and Sparks and Martin soon arrived after me. We had dinner and agreed we wouldn’t set alarms for the morning but sleep in a bit as we only had 5ish miles to get to Mammoth.