I got my birthday wish today….after a long night of sleep I woke up and my fever had finally broken. It still felt like my stomach was in a vice, but I could deal with that. We broke camp while it was still cold and made quick work of the 2000’ climb up Bear Ridge on our way to Selden Pass. We had read several accounts of people having a heck of time fording Bear Creek which we crossed late morning, but the nice thing about doing the JMT in early September is that most of the creeks and rivers have dropped to very easily passable levels and we happily skipped across the exposed boulders with nary a problem.
While we were hiking along Bear Ridge, Becky rounded a corner at one point and encountered an older female hiker with wild curly gray hair and a deeply intense look on her face tearing up the trail in an outfit constructed entirely of an ultra-lightweight, baggy parachute type material. Becky’s initial reaction was “Oh my god! It’s a witch!”, but then the lady spoke, rather curtly - “Are you doing the whole JMT?" Yes? Good.” - and then she blew past us. Becky realized that it was just one of the many characters you’re sure to encounter deep in these mountains. She became known to us as “The Witch of the Sierras” and we learned later that Larry had also encountered her on the trail and got an unsolicited and somewhat angry earful on the nutritional deficiencies of Gatorade.
Marie Lake, situated just below Selden Pass (10,880’), was another highlight of the trip…an unreal shade of blue, rimmed with beaches and meadows in the middle of a desolate rocky high alpine basin. We caught up with Larry (ever so briefly) at Marie Lakes. We all crossed Selden Pass together, snapped a few pics and then he sped off, not to be seen again until our very last day.
We had planned to camp on the north side of the pass by Sally Keyes Lake, but when we got there we still felt strong enough to go a couple more miles, so we continued on down below treeline and camped along Sanger Creek. The weather was still clear when the sun set, so we had hopes that the forecast wouldn’t hold true and tomorrow would be dry.
Marie Lake
Selden Pass
Sally Keyes Lakes
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