JMT Day 9

Trail Stats
Name: JMT Day 9: Bear Creek Junction – Muir Trail Ranch via Seldon Pass
Where: Sierra Nevada, California
When: August 8, 2014
Distance: 15 miles. Roughly 1050ft ascent/3350ft descent.

Heading up Seldon Pass

Journal entry:
Today started out as a beautiful walk along Bear Creek. There was minimal elevation gain and many enticing swimming holes – although it was too early for a dip! We seem to always pass these great spots at the wrong time. Seldon Pass was a bit of a grind but it was gorgeous up there! We felt great on the top and K + T met us up there as well as our new English friends, Martin and Kim. We were feeling good about the second bit of the day. Even until Sallie Keys lakes it was going swimmingly! And then it just kept going. And going. We ran out of water. And the trail just kept dropping down and down. FINALLY we made it to MTR. And then had to walk another 10min to the campsite on the river. MTR did not seem very friendly. The campsite is insanely crowded but we managed to find a secluded spot. We were/are both wrecked! But we made the trip across the river to find the hot springs which were actually warm muddy pools of water in a swamp but it still felt wonderful and therapeutic! Tim and I read through the rest of the guide book and freaked ourselves out about the rest of the trip. It’s going to be hard. I hope we can do it. I hope I can do it. It seems almost impossible that we have so much more to do! The English people said their GPS said we walked 15.5 miles today – it was meant to be 13.5. All of these guide books are inconsistent.

In the morning we chatted more with the English couple (Martin and Kim) who had camped near us the night before. We showed them our guide book and the itinerary we were following and they decided to aim for MTR as well.

This is a beautiful day. Seldon Pass is a manageable pass with a beautiful view. The lakes on the way down are also beautiful. We saw a couple of people camped around them — I don’t blame them for stopping!
Karen and Tess decided not to continue all the way down into Muir Trail Ranch and camped in a spot between Sallie Keyes and Senger Creek. We wanted to stick to the itinerary, though, so continued on. The weather, again, turned miserable after passing Sallie Keys. We also ran out of water on the descent but it always seemed as if we must be NEARLY there! This was a big-mileage day and it definitely felt like it near the end.

The campsite was very crowded and rather uninspiring. We walked through the masses of tents and found a little spot right down on the river secluded from the rest of the campers by rocky embankments.

We had heard talk and murmurings of a hot spring at MTR. To get to it, it’s necessary to ford across the icy, rather wide, fast-flowing river. On the other side, the “hot springs” are a few muddy pools scattered around a swampy bit of land. They stunk. We scoped out a private pool with a strategically-placed log laying over the pool that I could cling to because I was deathly afraid of whatever disgusting things might be lurking beneath the impossibly-brown and murky water. Although it wasn’t the amazing experience we had dreamed of, and the water was more luke-warm than hot, it was a pleasant way to spend an evening on the trail. Beggars can’t be choosers, after all!