9/14/2023
Section: Milepost 979.3 to 957.3
Total Trail Miles: 1979.9
Distance: 22.52 Miles
Moving Time: 11:27 hrs
Elevation Gain: 5542 ft
Well, I couldn’t see it last night but we did indeed set up in paradise. I typically don’t like sleeping in river valleys. They warm and brighten up slower, but this one is stunning. Rancherita creek makes for a gorgeous cut through the otherwise solid granite of this area.
We did our normal wake-up things, enjoying the granite throne setting we found ourselves in. One downside of this rocky terrain though - no great place to dig catholes. Yea, pretty much after I get halfway through my coffee, i’m off searching for a spot. This is not an area I want to be taken by surprise in. Anyway, we were up and on the trail just after 7 am… okay like 7:15, getting started before sunrise is really tough to do with the slightly colder mornings but we are going to have to get better at it!
The stage today starts on the Rancherita river and makes a slow, steady climb up to near the head of the river valley before turning south and crossing over Seavy Pass. In true Sierra PCT fashion it drops 1600 feet in just over two and a half miles down to the beautiful Benson Lake. Over the next 6 miles the path climbs 2500 feet, crossing between Volunteer Peak and Smedburg lake to reach Benson Pass, a tiny little notch in the impassible granite, at 11 miles in. From Benson Pass, the trail dips into the Wilson Creek drainage and circumvents the southern edge of the Quarry Peak massif. Wilson Creek joins Matterhorn Creek and the trail follows it turning northeast for a while before turning south again in a maddening seesaw motion as it gains another small pass near Miller Lake. The stage ends with a final descent off of the Miller Lake plateau and down into the Return Creek Drainage.
I took some weight off of Amanda today to see if we could move a little bit faster and we cruised up and out of the Rancherita Creek drainage after about an hour of picking our way along the rocky path. Some days I really do miss the nice, spongy loam of the Oregon Cascades. We crossed Seavy pass around 8:30, took a quick break for “brunch” and started to wind down to Benson lake. We took another short break at the lake and enjoyed the sun as it reached above the surrounding granite peaks.
We left the welcoming shores of Benson Lake and committed to the long climb of the day up to Benson Pass. Shortly after leaving the lake we got some “encouraging” words from a guy hiking north. “Benson Pass sucks,” he said with a smile and we grumbled our thanks as we made our way uphill. We crossed a few streams near Benson Lake with the aid of some massive avalanche blowdown. It felt like hopscotch but not a game you would want to miss your next step. Falling into the snarled mess of branches and broken trunks below would have sucked but it kept our feet dry.
It was near Benson Lake that we had a second run in with our dear friend Amy Lu. Both we and she knew that we would likely run into each other in Yosemite but we didn’t know exactly where. As it happened Amy heard us up the trail and had time to hide behind a tree as we approached. All of a sudden, we saw another thru hiker making bear noises and rushing out of the trees at us. We both kinda had awkward smiles on our faces in a “what the heck is going on” reaction before realizing it was her, at which point we both laughed and rushed to give her a hug. After, we sat and talked for about an hour, taking a lunch break and relating all that had happened since we last saw her in mid-Oregon. She had been up to Washington but had run into fires and so was back in the Sierra trying to get it complete while waiting for later season to finishour home state. After about 45 minutes we decided to keep going. It’s so weird and wonderful to know that no matter how far apart we get from Amy and our other friends, at any moment we are all likely on this slim, 2600 mile long line from Mexico to Canada. Seeing Amy Lu put some spirit back in us and we both agreed she healed us as we headed on south with renewed energy!
We reached a shelf below Benson pass around noon and wound along the shores of Smedburg lake which is absolutely gorgeous. In the core summer some PCTrs take part in what is called the Ducky Challenge. This name is in reference to the icon FarOut uses to distinguish lakes and ponds along the PCT. There are some variations on this challenge but they all involve committing to a plunge in all “Ducky Delineated Bodies of Water” along certain stretches of the PCT - typically the stretch through the 3 main national parks, Kings Canyon, Sequoia and Yosemite. Given that many of the lakes we came in contact with in the early days in the first two parks were covered in snow, we were woefully behind on the Ducky Challenge, though we did pretty well in Oregon, but decided not to slow ourselves down any further here, thought it would have been an epic lake to take a dip in.
Benson pass did indeed suck. It was a rocky, hot and steep approach to a narrow little notch in the granite. The sun was making its way down as we crested over the top and descended along Wilson creek. Here, a young guy caught up and chatted with us on the way down. His name was Paper Boat and he was from Portland. Really cool guy - the trail just keeps providing characters as we move along it. We talked about Portland and trains as we descended and what we were “reading” as we started the last ascent of the night to Miller lake. He was listening to Dr. Sleep and had lots of good things to say about it. The darkness enveloped us as we reached Miller lake which was, again, astoundingly beautiful in the twilight colors. Paper Boat decided to call it there but Amanda and I were feeling far better than we had in the last couple of days (shout out to Amy’s healing vibes) so we committed to getting to Return Creek.
We reached Return Creek maybe an hour or so after dark and crossed to get to the camp on the other side. Really cold crossing, but probably good for our swollen feet. Amanda and I both hid our hiking poles in the trees as Amy had mentioned something chewed on her grips the night before. We ate dinner and Amanda showed off some nasty purple contusions that had formed on the bottom arches of her feet. This ground is hard and brutal to walk on and it’s definitely showing, however despite that, today felt really good. I think the weight has finally broken in our packs and it’s making for easier going on these later stages. At least, that’s what I was thinking with every bite I took out of my Good-to-go freeze dried meal. We drifted off to sleep listening to the consistent gurgling of Return Creek.
