Today was a much needed Zero Day. Well, okay, it was really a 1/2 mile day. I awoke to the generator kicking on at 7 am. After some minutes of enjoying the cozy warmth of my beloved sleeping bag, I worked my way over to the cafe where I enjoyed an enormous and delicious breakfast. And fresh coffee, of course. Our group scheduled a meeting of the minds to figure out the plans for the next 24 hours. We had originally planned to take the next morning’s ferry back and have a long day of hiking the 13-ish miles to Rosemarie Meadow. Since the previous day we had been hearing stories about the hot and laborious climb out of Quail Meadows and over Bear Ridge and we were not looking forward to having to do this in the hot late morning since the ferry wouldn’t even leave VVR until after 9am. So, we made plans to spend the remainder of the day at VVR, but take the afternoon ferry back at 4 pm and camp at that end of Lake Edison. That way we could wake up early the next morning and get that climb out of the way before it got too hot out.
It was a smart but difficult decision to make – missing Chef Roy’s amazing Saturday night BBQ was painful, especially since we got to spend the afternoon watching and smelling the food cook. We also knew Marty and Cameron would be arriving on that afternoon’s ferry, and we would miss celebrating Cameron’s birthday with them.
I spent the day at VVR taking care of some chores – laundry, showering, resupply organization, and emailing Dave to tell him to bring replacement socks and shoes to Bishop. It was a relaxing day though – chatting with other through-hikers, the VVR employees, and shoving my face full of more food and beer kept us very happy.
At 4 pm we reluctantly closed out tabs, thanked Jim, the owner of VVR, and headed back out to the ferry. We waved at Marty and Cameron as they boarded the ferry and then walked all of a half mile to a nice campsite that I had spotted on the way in. It was still early, so I spent an hour or so perched on a very comfortable rock formation with my book and a cold can of beer that I’d bought right before leaving VVR and wrapped in my fleece jacket to keep cold.
This day’s stats:
- Mileage: 0.5 mi
- Ascending: 50 ft
- Descending: 0 ft
- Cumulative Mileage: 67.78 mi
- Cumulative Ascending: 11,163 ft
- Cumulative Descending: 12,132 ft
