Monday September 28, 23.6mi/38.0km

Duck Pass Trail Jct (895.7/10174ft) to Campsite next to Bear Creek (872.1/8970ft) (CA)

We were slow moving in the cold morning, and eventually got moving down the trail by 7:30am. Today was our first Sierra high pass, 10,800ft Silver Pass. So we made sure to practice for Pass push-ups with plenty of bridge pushups!

After a couple of hours, it warmed up and we took a nice long morning break. There are so many nice flat rocks here, but this one was a perfect chair!

The clouds didn’t look friendly, but they never misbehaved, and we were dry and happy all day. The view from the top of Silver Pass was still pretty amazing even with the clouds.

This part of the Sierras have heaps of granite, so our break spots were always comfortable. I love all the options for sitting rocks.

As we hiked downhill along Mono Creek, we entered lower elevations and were surrounded by deciduous trees. Their yellow leaves made it obvious that autumn was here.

We skipped the side trail to VVR (a common PCT/JMT resupply point), as we assumed they would already be closed for the season, and had packed out enough food for 7 days. Our planned camp spot was another 6 miles distant, and we kept motivated on the 2.5 mile climb by making it a friendly competition against the clock. After only an hour and 1500ft+, we were at the top of the climb! The last hour to camp was easy, though it was a little difficult to find our camp spot in the dark. I quickly setup my tent and ate my ramen noodles, and fell asleep to the sounds of Bear creek nearby.