July 1st 2009 - VVR to Near Deer Creek

Amazingly slept good on a very suspect mattress on an old bunkbed in a canvas platform tent with the knowledge that a bear had gotten into the nearby Hiker Box the night before. Luckily there were no bear incidents over night.

Tom and I decided last minute to not spend a zero at VVR and push on to Reds Meadow. We are hoping to make it to Tuolomne Meadows before the post office closes on July 3rd. Due to the restuarant opening late for breakfast we ended up having less than 1 hour to resupply at the small store (Our toughest resupply thus far due to very limited selection) and pack up and make it to the ferry. Fortunately we work well under pressure and made it to the ferry dock with 10 minutes to spare.

The morning hiking was uneventful. Ran into Rachel (who we had hiked over mather and Pinchot Passes with) at Silver Pass. Tom surprised her with a root beer to thank her for the food she had given us previously. It was good to see her again.

We managed to get lost briefly on the north side of Silver Pass due to snow. Luckily there were some weekend backpackers who pointed us in the right direction.

Then we entered mosquito hell. The bugs started getting really bad and were driving us nuts. We came to a trail junction which was well signed. We saw a sign pointed toward Red's Meadow and quickly went that direction. After going downhill for over 2 miles (through more mosquito hell) we finally realized we should be going uphill.

After consulting our maps, we realized we had made a wrong turn. Dang! The trail we were on had been so horrible we didn't want to have to go back. We found an alternative trail that we could take to make it back to the PCT without backtracking.

After 4 miles, 2 hours, Tom falling into a creek and me going batty with the skeeters, we finally made it back to the PCT. Ran into Rachel once again.