Wednesday, July 13, 2011

July 10, 2011

Start: 973
End: 988

This morning we were moderately better at getting an early start. Out of camp at 8am we climbed up toward Seavey Pass where we got separated from Jimbrick. We got slightly off track in the snow and missed each other descending from the pass down into Kerrick Canyon. As is the case many times, snow over the trail was the cause of our split, and the reason we didn't reconnect until the Kerrick Creek crossing. Just before the crossing Annie, 12 Ounce, and I ran into three new thru-hikers: Rock Locks, Mr. Fox, and Ramble On.

Once we were all back together we made our way to a log about 200 yds downstream of the trail crossing and were able to cross easily with the help of a rope that someone had tied across the stream, about waist height above the log.

A couple miles down the trail we came to our second stream crossing of the day in Stubblefield Canyon. This was a multi-stage crossing. The first part we waded through in shallow water, second was a crossing on a log over the fastest and roughest branch, and finally wading across a wide, slow moving section that was waist deep. This crossing was more time intensive and difficult than Kerrick, and than we were expecting, but still very comfortable. It's interesting that only some crossings get mentioned as being particularly bad when it seems that the unmentioned or unnamed streams are worse.

Following this we had about 8 more miles to get to the next major crossing at Falls Creek. There was a lot of up and down as we climbed out of one canyon only to descend another. As a bonus to the climbing, we did find time to do some foraging as we collected some small wild onions and mint which we added to our meal and made tea with, respectively.

Around 7pm we reached Falls Creek, which was flowing with a significant amount of water. Enough that we didn't feel safe crossing where the PCT actually crossed. So we continued upstream another mile or so before deciding to camp and continue searching upstream for a suitable crossing point in the morning. The trail follows Falls Creek for quite a while on the other side so we will still be headed in the right direction.


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