Ten miles to Muir Pass and the last of the 5 major passes, I was on the trail by 6 and pushing hard. Until I hit a snow filled terrain. The last 4 miles up to the hut on top of the over 12k’ Pass were completely covered in snow. Postholing was once again a part of life, along with the mind games that the top of the pass was around every corner. It seemingly never was. Finally at the top, I took a picture and wanted to get as far down as possibly before it began to thaw. I followed and walked right over the tops of the tracks of others and it seemed to spa e me the majority of postholing for the first couple miles. Then there was no stopping it. My knees got a workout from essentially doing deep knee bends to pull myself out of the snow each time I sank in knee deep. Over four miles after the pass the snow was finally patchy and I could walk on mostly solid ground. The last major obstacle of the day was Evolution Creek. It has the reputation of being one of the harder crossings, but I crossed up stream in the meadow and it was very straight forward. It was a strange day. Very trying, tiring and the continued exertion and stress of the precious days has built up. I didn’t see a person today until 730pm when I was finishing out the last mile of my day to prepare to get over Seldon Pass in the morning. The last bit of bad news to report today is I started seeing mosquitos. Hopefully after a good nights rest my body can make it through 40 more miles on limited food to Mammoth.
Miles hiked: 34
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