June 28th 2009 - Big Pete Meadow to Aspen Meadows

Woke up early in hopes of getting up to Muir Pass before the snow softened too much. Muir pass is notorious for having several miles of snow walking which can be a post-holing nightmare if you do it too late in the day.

Strider and V were up early as well with the same plan to hit Muir early. We ended up leap frogging all the way up to the snow. Once we hit snow, we all stuck together for safety and route finding. Besides snow, we also had to navigate over boulder fields and icy creeks. We all made it up to the hut atop Muir Pass by 10:15am.

After a quick snack and some pictures, we were off. Although still relatively early, we still managed to post-hole occassionally and had to navigate through snow where others had post-holed - sometimes up to the hip. Once again, we also had to ford cold creeks running from under the snow. We were glad to finally reach real trail after a long slog in the snow.

Next challenge was fording the infamous Evolution Creek, which is known as a "dangerous" ford. Since we were crossing it about 6pm, we were worried about how high the creek would be running.

Although we had parted ways with Strider and V after Muir Pass, we fortunately caught back up with them at Evolution Creek. There was a sign directing us upstream about 25 yards. Although wide, the creek was nothing that we would call dangerous - even late in the day. We all crossed with water level just above our knees. Strider and V camped soon after the ford, but Tom and I continued on several more miles.