Day 88 (16 July) - Mile 963.09 - 978.18

Campsite near small stream to Campsite near small creek

I slept pretty well last night. It started out fairly warm and then got colder throughout the night, but not too cold. I woke at 5:40 AM and was excited that I had 20 more minutes to sleep, and the next thing I knew, it was 6:20 AM. Oops. I quickly got my stuff together, dug a cat hole, filtered a couple of liters of water, and ate breakfast. Throughout all of this, Pinot, Pirate, and Andy all left for their hikes. We were ready to go at 7:40 AM.

Ready to hike.

Today's hike is going to be a bit challenging. We have 2 passes to cross which means lots of climbing, and in between the passes we will have lots of downhills. In our planned 15 miles we will go up 3,923 feet and down 4,068 feet.  One plus is that the first pass is right away, so we get to climb with fresh legs. However, the second pass is at the end of the day...as usual.

First, let's climb Benson Pass, a 1,700 foot climb in 3.27 miles. Since we hit this first thing in the morning, we were feeling pretty good. How could we not with this scenery around us?

Our morning view.

The beautiful PCT.

One hour into hiking, we hit this amazing meadow and a view of the pass somewhere out there:

Meadow with mountains

We climbed for almost 2 hours and arrived at the top of Benson Pass at 9:20 AM. I think this is the earliest we have been on top of a pass. After we arrived, Pinot and Pirate was right behind.

Celebrating at the top of Benson Pass, 10,125 feet.

View to the south of Benson Pass

View to the north of Benson Pass

Our stay at the top was very short-lived due to the swarm of mosquitos up there. We pretty much took out pictures and headed down immediately. The views as we climbed down were spectacular.

Share Bear admiring the view.

One hour after leaving Benson Pass we arrived at Smedberg Lake...how gorgeous.

Smedberg Lake

We didn't stop at the lake for a break, instead we hiked on. We wanted to get to our lunch spot early enough so we could take a nice break there before climbing the next pass. So, we hiked on for 2 more hours before stopping for lunch at 12:30 PM.

On the way, the trail didn't disappoint:

The beautiful PCT.

Deer just off the trail.

PCT sign of the day with Share Bear in background.

Lunch was a much needed stop. While there, 7 others arrived with the same idea of stopping there for lunch. We were joined by Bigfoot, Doc, Aviator, Karal, Pinot, Pirate, and ??.  It was nice, but we wound up breaking for almost 2 hours...too long!  Just before 2:30 PM, we said goodbye to our fellow hikers and headed out for Seavey Pass, a 1,600 foot climb in 3 miles.

Self-portrait "Taking a break from climbing Seavey Pass"

As we climbed, we came across Larry sitting on the side of the trail taking a break. Larry is 71 and thought he would try hiking from Tuolumne Meadows to just Carson Pass, a 135 mile stretch of the PCT, in 14 days. Sounds pretty doable...he just has to average about 10 miles a day. The problem is that he decided to try to do it without resupplying, so he started out carrying 14 days worth of food!  That must be at least 35 pounds of just food...on the back of a 71-year-old. Needless to say, he was exhausted climbing up Seavey Pass. We wished him luck and continued upward trying to figure out, as usual, where the pass was.

I looked up and this seemed to be the pass we were headed for:

Is this Seavey Pass?

We got to the top and there was another top, then we climbed some more and there was another top. This is the craziest pass we have done. We looked up and saw what we hoped was the top, when we got there it wasn't the top, but, surprise...this amazing alpine lake was there:

Amazing alpine lake.

OK...at the top of this rocky staircase has to the the top of Seavey Pass:

Steep, rocky staircase.

We didn't know if it was the top, but we took our celebratory top of pass picture just in case.

Seavey Pass?

Was it the top or not?  We have no idea. The trail did go down from there, but then it went up. Since we took the picture we are going to call it Seavey Pass!

On the way down we caught a glimpse of another alpine lake down below:

Lake and mountains.

At this point we were tired. According to our maps and guides, the next campsite was still 5 miles away and it was now around 5:00 PM. With a big sigh, we headed down the pass hoping to find a site before then. We hiked for almost 2 hours and was lucky to spot a great campsite on a stream right at our 15 mile point of the day...awesome!

We set up camp and both had ramen noodles for dinner...one of our favorite meals. The mosquitoes seemed to stay away while we ate, but started coming out in a vengeance when we were finishing.

We quickly cleaned up and were in our tents around 8:00 PM...earlier than usual, but we can use the extra sleep tonight after climbing 2 passes in one day.

Tomorrow's hike doesn't look as bad as today, but there is a lack of campsites at the 15 mile point. So we will have to stop short or hike extra miles. We will make the decision as we go along. But for now, I better plan for the worst and get a good nights sleep in case we have to hike over 15 miles tomorrow. So goodnight for now...

Our campsite for the night.