Goal for the day: Lake Italy Trail Junction or Beyond

When I woke up I still hadn’t heard from MTR, so didn’t know if they had trekking poles available or not. I still didn’t want to take the time to go out to VVR and the duct tape seemed to be working on my repaired trekking pole. Going out to VVR could also lead me to aborting if I got too comfortable. So, I decided to give my repaired pole a field test and continue down the JMT as planned.

Or UP the JMT since it was mostly uphill from there towards Selden Pass (11,058). With 4,000+ feet to climb and over 14 miles to cover, there was no way I could get to the pass that day but I could get within spitting distance.

The first part was to climb up to Bear Crest along a trail with a decent number of switchbacks. Not too bad and I even got a brief cell signal on the way up. I believe this signal and the signal the day before was probably coming from the direction of Lake Thomas A Edison. They must have cell service near the lake. Civilization was so close. 🙂

I never did actually get to see the lake. Either I didn’t look around at the right time, or it can’t be seen from the actual trail.

This first 5 mile part of the day’s hike also had a map warning about no reliable water sources until Bear Creek or so. Since I know I wouldn’t be camping along that segment, I only took about 1.5 liters of water (plus my 20oz Gatorade bottle).

Unfortunately, after reaching the top of Bear Crest (9,880 feet), there was a 1,000 foot descent to the Bear Creek crossing at 8,957 feet before things leveled out and rose again towards Selden Pass. Fortunately, the trail was a little less steep after Bear Creek.

As the trees thinned out and I got some glorious view of the surrounding mountains, I noticed some dark clouds in the distance. Unfortunately, they were in the direction I was heading. Behind me? Clear blue skies, of course. 🙂

After a while, I felt a few sprinkles so I put my rain cover on my backpack and made sure my raincoat was handy. It wasn’t long before the sprinkles became a light drizzle. Nothing heavy, but enough to qualify as the first rain of my trek.

Then it started HAILING.

Fortunately, they were very small pieces of hail and very scattered. In fact, I didn’t notice that the raindrops were hail until someone sheltering under a tree mentioned it was hail. It was nothing like the hours long downpour of heavy hail I had the fun of backpacking through at the top of Yosemite Falls years ago.

The light rain was off and on for the rest of the afternoon, but never heavy. When I got to the Lake Italy Trail junction, I looked around and didn’t really like the campsites there and my body still felt good. So, I decided to continue upward.

When I got to Upper Bear Creek Meadows after another mile of hiking I found a nice campsite with a view of a mountain called Seven Gables. Much nicer than the sites lower down the meadow.

I setup my tent near a big tree to give me some cover from the rain. Maybe a half hour went by when there was a brief downpour that was heavier than what I had hiked through up until then. I rode it out inside my tent while being thankful that I had setup camp just in time.

Once it was over, I had dinner and then enjoyed some nice color across Seven Gables during the sunset.

I was happy with how my repaired trekking pole held up during the day, so was confident it wouldn’t be a problem at least until I got to MTR the next day after going over Selden Pass.

11.5 miles hiked, 8:30 hours, 3,000 feet climbed
97 total miles hiked on the JMT

Highlights:
• Great views climbing up from Bear Creek
• Drizzle and light hail on the trail, then a rain shower at camp
• Daily Goal Achieved plus an extra mile!