Day 62 - 6/26/12 - Powered by Pancakes

Contents:  VVR- Purple Lake (1.5 miles back to PCT plus 15.8 PCT miles)

$170.00 in the hole and stuffed with pancakes, I managed to escape VVR on the 9:00 ferry.  AS soon as the ferry docked, Smiles, Tourist, and I passed out on the beach in some serious food comas.  Meanwhile Wash Out and two Israelies, Sleeping Bag and Amigo took off hoping to put in a bigger day to allow time for their Mammoth stop.  The plan was to reconnect with Wash Out in Tuolumne on Friday.

Around 10:30 or 11:00 Smiles, Tourist, and I motivated to start walking.  The hiking felt great.  I will certainly miss Wash Out.  However, Smiles and I definitely place a high value on our independence out here. 

We kicked things off with a 7+ mile climb up to Silver Pass at 10,900 ft.  The scenery was beautiful, and I was sad my camera wasn't working well. The terrain was very rocky and almost made me miss my climbing gear!  I enjoyed hiking by myself and just stopped to refill water once and for one snack.  Unfortunately, I broke my headphones when putting them back in my ears after my water break.  Argh!  I've been listening to music on my iphone more lately as Wash Out really likes to hike with tunes.  I don't like to have music envy and it does make the miles fly by.  Side note while I'm thinking about it....I've switched to almost exclusively using bleach for water treatment.  It is just so much simpler.  If I want water right away, I'll filter, but otherwise I'm a dip and drop girl now.

Back to the hike......Surprisingly, I caught up to Wash Out and the Israelies at Silver Pass and wound up leaving with them and a guy named Shtterbug after hanging out for quite a while.  Smiles and Tourist hadn't made it up yet, but I knew they would be close behind.  After leaving the pass, we descended to Fish Creek in the Cascade Valley before cranking out a huge climb up to Purple Lake where we all set up camp for the night.

Purple Lake is wonderful.  We are camped below 10,000 ft. and have a great fire going.  I actually cooked over the fire in order to conserve fuel.  Since I'm not planning to stop in Mammoth, I had to leave VVR with enough fuel to make it 217 miles to South Lake Tahoe.  I'm carrying about 20 ounces of alcohol which should be plenty, but I'm happy to conserve whenever possible.

Tourist, Smiles, and I are off to Red's Meadow tomorrow.  We may or may not spend the night there but are looking forward to hitting the hot springs.  we've also heard there is free camping so my money is on a night at Red's.