Day 6 - last chance for laundry and a shower! While I was certainly looking forward to those amenities, I wasn't craving them the same way I was on Day 3. Seems I'm adjusting to life on the trail......
The night sky was gorgeous. Stunningly clear, starry night with the Milky Way a striking presence. When the sun rose the sky was still clear - another bluebird day. And since we are up so high (over 10,000') with little vegetation around and in quite an open area, we actually had some sunshine in camp for breakfast. It was also useful to dry my tent out before packing it up. As I did that little task I had an unexpected visitor- a hummingbird! Who knew they lived up here?
We got on the trail by about 8:15 and climbed a steady uphill about 400 feet to Silver Pass.
Beautiful views all the way up and at the top (10,754'). My notes tell me that Mike K (aka Smokey, our resident expert photographer) took a group shot at the top - and here it is.
And - here is a shot of the speedsters - Lightening McQueen (Mike T), Speedsticks (Kaylee ) and guide Katie. BTW - Silver Pass is the only one of the passes of the JMT that is not named after a person.
Here are a couple of pics looking back from whence we came. I believe last night's campsite is right about smack dab middle of the first photo.
Are you sick of looking at these clothes yet? Well, it makes the decision of what to wear each day pretty easy :) One nice thing about the weather is that we can wash our clothes when we get into camp (now that we get into camp at a decent time) and they generally dry before dark. Our days have fallen into a comfortable rhythm of getting on the trail shortly after 8 and depending on the distance and terrain each day, we'll be in to camp between 3 & 5.
It was a nice gentle downhill to come off the pass with more lovely views awaiting us.
This was just the start of the downhill. Before we would be done for the day we would descend over 3000 feet to Lake Thomas Edison. We had a real variety of terrain - some really rocky sections and some soft, needle-lined forest floors. Some steep, some flat, some rolling. The vegetation changed from harsh, sparse alpine to thick, lush forest with big tall pine trees and some deciduous (aspen).
Shortly after we began our descent we skirted the east side of Silver Pass Lake.
The downhill continued and after a time we came back to parallel Silver Pass Creek.
Lots of big polished (during the last Ice Age, apparently) granite slabs. We forded the creek a few times and had a chance to get up-close and personal with a lovely waterfall.
The Jeffrey Pine (huge pinecones and "puzzled" bark that smells like vanilla) made a sudden reappearance - at a certain elevation.
Linda and Kaylee check out the smell.............
Our destination tonight is VVR, which ordinarily is about a 5 mile water taxi ride across Lake Thomas A Edison (a reservoir and part of the California power system). Did I mention the area has been in drought for 4 years? Well - the lake is now a puddle; 20% of capacity and they have just started to draw-down again a few days ago. One of the locals estimated that it is at about 18% of capacity right now and they will keep draining it until it reaches 4% - yikes! The regular water taxis can't run at this level. Some small motor boats still shuttle hikers but they are only running in the mornings right now. Alex & Katie had ordered a special run for us at 4PM. It was a smoking hot day today, and after a short snack stop we pushed through to the edge of the lake, hoping we could contact VVR and advance our ride.
We reached the edge of the lake about 2PM. We didn't get our usual puffy cloud formations around noon, so we were taking the full brunt of the sun. My watch was reading 39C. We retreated to some trees for lunch and then waited for call from the water taxis.
Even the direction of the landing site has had to change due to the lack of water. Once we got the call to head for the taxis, it was a bit of a hike through dry lake-bed to reach them.
I didn't have a chance to take pictures at the VVR end, but it was pretty funny. Since the lake is so low, we had to be shuttled from the landing site to VVR. Our shuttle vehicle was the "prison van". Most of the packs were thrown on top and all 11 of us were crammed into the back of a cargo van, with steel fencing between us and the driver's compartment. A few people were lucky to have a milk crate to sit on; the rest of us sat on the floor. A bit of a bumpy ride, but better than walking!
It was about a 10 minute drive to VVR, where Sierra met us once again. She, Alex & Katie set about organizing the resupply. We would be carrying food for 5 days this time, so the bear canisters would be pretty full and heavy.
Meanwhile, the rest of us set up our tents and then took advantage of the luxuries - showers and laundry! Dixie kindly bought shower tokens for all of us (maybe we smelled more than we thought we did :) ). Then a few of us combined laundry and managed to chose the machine that got stuck on every cycle. I think it took about 2 hours to manually move it from one cycle to the next! It is our last chance for plumbing all trip, so everyone really savoured it.
Shower & laundry building.............
Restaurant (I had a wonderful steak dinner)
General store.......
Hiker boxes, where people leave stuff from their resupply buckets that they don't want.
I really liked VVR. We met lots of other JMT-ers and PCT-ers. Gotta say...... some of those PCT folks are a bit of a strange breed! A very friendly and relaxed vibe. Free (first) beer for all thru-hikers. We had lots of time to visit, read, and just chill. This was also our last chance to ditch anything that we might want to see again. I got rid of my long underwear, bug spray, camera case and sunglasses case. Pretty much down to bare bones now............. I think my body had adjusted to the trip by this point. I don't have anything in my notes about sore body parts. I think the ribs had resolved, the heat rash had faded and my glutes were getting used to the terrain.
Stats for today: About 9 miles, 1140' up and 3860' down. Elevation at VVR - about 7700'.
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