Day 10. Monday, June 29, 2009. Mileage: 791.4 – 805 (13.6 miles)

What a wild morning. Jess and I were breaking camp after a night spent at the beautiful, alpine Charlotte Lake. A woman approached our temporary home and suggested that we move a hundred yards back from the lake because an approaching helicopter would be landing directly in front of us. I asked if everyone was okay, and she replied that there was a consistent, problem bear population around the lake and a bear specialist who had been residing here for the week was to be air lifted out of the area. One determined bear had broken in to the ranger station near our camp three times using different access points each time. Sure as the California sun, five minutes later a helicopter circled the lake, gently plopped itself in front of our campsite, loaded up the so-called bear specialists and took off shortly thereafter. It was an awesome site.


We then began the climb toward Glenn Pass, the first mile of which we had already climbed in our directional mishap the day before. Despite the fact that it was a longer climb than I had anticipated, the switchbacks made the uphill very tolerable and I felt great. We were disappointed to find lots of snow on the North side of the mountain once we summitted, although the crunchy snow allowed us to cross the snow fields without postholing. And we had a blast glissading three different times on the way down in the sections where walking on foot downhill could mean a slip and long slide.

When we weren’t racing down the snow chutes on our butts, we moved pretty slowly. The afternoon took us around a series of crystal clear lakes that rested in silence, disrupted only slightly by the pitter patter of tiny raindrops which had started to drop at lunchtime.

This was the best part of my day. I find that after days of consistent sunshine, an overcast day or rain shakes down my priorities so that few things, if anything at all, feel pressing.
We forded 4-5 rivers today, one of which was strong enough to require Jess talking me across it. The river stayed close to the trail most of the day, often building to white rapids, which provided enough background noise to allow me to loudly sing John Vanderslice’s Romanian Names album from start to finish.

Then I realized that I had lost both my hat and my sunglasses at some point in the day. I felt annoyed at my forgetfulness which is pervasive even when I only have to think about carrying the items on my back. This frustration was exacerbated by the sudden onslaught of mosquitoes. Before I got too fussy in my head, I took some initiative and dipped my body in a lake to calm down, which did the trick.

We ate dinner at Woods Creek and then walked on from 6:00 – 7:45 pm. Our campsite was very buggy and I felt ready to sleep off the day.