Jessica dropped us off this morning. I had the trail blues: I feel this way after spending time in town. I dread hiking again. But we are so close to the end of the Sierra. Two more weeks and I'll be in South Lake Tahoe. I said my goodbyes to Jessica and me and the group, not a smaller contingent of the Lazy Fucks headed out of Horseshoe Lake and up over Mammoth Pass.
It was actually a pretty easy climb except for some mangled forest we had to cut through. Once we got back to the PCT is was easy cruising down to the PCT/JMT junction. We covered 9 miles in 5 hours. Unfortunately my pack is now heavy again with food and I've lost a ton of weight so my hip belt no longer supports the weight. Most of it pulls on my shoulders so my back starts aching after a couple miles.
We past by Devils Postpile and I completely forgot to photograph it. It's an interesting rock formation, and national monument. We're way down below 8,000 ft so there is lots of dirt trail and a million new mosquitos to deal with. You trade one thing for the other out here. We camped along a river and immediately got fire going to keep the mosquitos at bay. Sometimes it works, sometimes they are so relentless they power through the smoke to find your ears and scalp. I hate them.
Tomorrow we are going to attempt 17 miles. I'm not sure how my back (and pack) will manage but we'll see. If we keep a higher mileage per day we can be in Kennedy Meadows North in a week.