I climbed up from Muir Trail Ranch today, past Sallie Keys Lakes and Heart Lake to Selden Pass. Down the other side, I passed Marie Lake and Marshall Lake while descending into Bear Creek to find camp. Today I covered 13.7 miles, 22.1 km.

The climb out of MTR was steep, but fun. The trail was nice to walk on, not rocky and sharp like most other steep climbs have been. On the way up I saw 3 rangers, 2 on horseback, heading out to do trailwork up top. The climb lasted for 3 hours and I was well and truly warmed up by the time I got to the top.

After the climb, the trail flattened off and meandered through the trees. This section, much like most of yesterday, was a breeze and I covered 1.5 miles in just over half an hour. In this time, I passed the Sallie Keys Lakes with pine trees all along the shores.

I then started to climb up to Selden Pass, it was fairly steep climbing, but not as steep as the earlier passes. On the way past Heart Lake, I bumped into another PCT hiker, Maggie, who I hadn’t seen since coming down Mt San Jacinto, 600 miles ago!

I reached the top of the pass, and it was the first time I’d seen trees on one of these passes. Back where I’d come up, the sun was shining and it was quite hot too. Over the other side, however, I saw menacing dark clouds in the next valley over.

As I descended towards Marie Lake after the pass, the clouds became darker, but still stayed away. The wind on the pass was blowing towards the clouds, and I hoped that would keep them distant as I continued down to the valley.

On the way down to Bear Creek, the rain started just a little bit. Thunder rolled around the valley, so loud that I could hear it echo off each mountain one at a time. For the first time in weeks, I got the umbrella off my pack, and it was the first time I’ve ever used it in rain. The rainfall wasn’t super heavy, and I was glad to be using an umbrella, it’s 1000x more breathable than any jacket could ever be.

In the end, I had to put my jacket on anyway, when I crossed Bear Creek the mosquitos were horrendous. The rain stopped eventually, but I kept the jacket on to keep the bugs at bay. Shortly after crossing the creek, I found camp. John Muir Wilderness regulations are to find camp at least 100 ft or 30 m from the trail or water, so it took a while to find a useable spot. In the end I found a nice flat spot a long way from the trail and a little up the hill.