Day 68: ⛺@ Heart Lake - VVR

Date: 14.06.2018

Miles hiked today: 15.5 Miles (including 1.5 miles off PCT trail to reach ferry shuttle) Total Mileage: Mile 878.7 Our camp site last night which was no official camp spot along the PCT turned out to be the most busiest camp spot I've been so far (apart from Hauser creek on our first night)! About 8 tents were set up. I did not sleep well that night, too much human noises! We got up at 4am to do the pass first thing in the morning and have a chilled day as we don't have to walk many miles today. The hike to the pass is also only 1 mile, the closest we have been so far. There was only little snow left and it actually would have been no problem to hike the pass yesterday afternoon. But after our experience on Muir Pass everyone seemed to be unsure and a little scared, so no one did the pass the day before in the afternoon to avoid postholing. Anyway, it was a beautiful morning and on the other side of the pass there were many lakes where the mountains would reflect, especially because it was a very calm morning. Absolutely beautiful, I couldnt stopp taking pictures of every lake, and specially when the sun started to rise and would colour the peak of the mountains in its golden shine. We knew today is gonna be a good day. Continuing walking down the valley we reached a big, wild river. Hhmmm, where is the trail?? Ah on the other side of the river. What really? This is the first time for a long time that my shoes and socks are fully dry! It feels great, dont wanna make them wet again. And anyway, how are we supposed to cross that river, looks pretty wild to me?! Checking the app it sais "cross bear creek, which is one of the wildest river crossings on the trail. Together with Evolution Creek (we did cross this one a day or two ago), Bear Creek is often cited as the most dangerous crossing, so be very careful when crossing. Many hikers tell stories of being knocked over by Bear Creek's raging current". Ok thanks for the advise. Let's see. We walked down the stream a little as it seemed quite deep where the trail is. I'm lucky because I hike with two tall hikers. Peter is about 1.94m and he crossed the river first to see how deep it is. Seems quite ok, just a little above his knees, which means about hip deep water for me! The current seemed stronger than on other crossings but absolutely doable. I go second, the water is absolutely freezing!! My shorts get wet but the water is just below my hips. The current is strong, so I'm very careful with every step I take (also dont want to slip on one of the slippery rocks) but it's fine if you watch out. Back out on the other side we are all shivering. Let's move on to get warm again. My feet feel like an ice block and it takes quite a while till they feel like my feet again. Specially as the sun doesn't reach the bottom of the valley yet. As we hike on there is one stream crossing after the other. But none of them is very wild or dangerous at all. We would like to break for breakfast but there are moskitos all around. No chance of breaking without being eaten alive by these little beasts! They love the wet landscapes with all the rivers and green forests, so do we but we have to give in. As we climb a hill and reach higher altitude it's also drier. Here we can stopp for a while. How nice to take off your backpack and not being eaten by moskitos. In Mammoth I definitely need to buy moskito spray, 100% deet. It's not that far to the ferry station for VVR anymore. If we hike fast we might be able to call the ferry and arrange a transfer around lunch time so we could get lunch and beer already at VVR. That would be nice. So we started to hike-run and arrived at the ferry dock just shortly after 1pm. Sadly they will not come and pick us up if its only us three. They do so if we can gather 12 or more hikers together. Otherwise they only drive as per schedule (9.45am and 4.45pm). No other hikers are around yet so I guess we will miss lunch and have to wait here for a couple of hours till the ferry arrives at 4.45pm. But it could be worse. At least the place is moskito free, the view is beautiful, the sun is out and with some reggae music out of my phone we are ready to chill. The time passed quite fast. The ferry arrived in time, fully loaded with hikers. It's poptart and his group! Ahw no, I hoped to meet them here again but they were one day ahead of us. Well, guess we will see each other again in Mammoth. Gotta hop on the boat and off we go! Ah stopp, stuck-on-the-ground is running, wait for her! She just made it in time - that was tight! The ferry ride is beautiful. Dark blue lake, sun out, the breeze, the sierra mountains around us, it's stunning and feels like we are going on an island vacation! I'm so excited! VVR looks very nice. We order food and it's delicious but I'm still hungry after that. So I order a big Apple pie with ice cream and make some popcorn thereafter! As it gets dark we light up a campfire and about 15 hikers are sitting and chatting around it till long after hiker midnight. It was really a good day today, as we predicted in the morning . Full of food and beer I roll into my sleepingbag and fall asleep.

River crossing

Bear Creek - dangerous river crossing! And wet are our feet already again!

Frosty grass in the morning

How romantic, loved these flowers

Isn't that absolutely beautiful? Getting up early is sooo worth it every day (It's hard though the first couple of minutes to find your motivation which normally hides in my warm and cozy sleeping bag!)