VVR to Chief Lake
The campground is up and stirring around us when we wake, more hikers, more campers, more people pouring into the campground in anticipation for the long weekend. We head in opposition to the rising crowd and make moves to catch the 10am shuttle.
At breakfast we meet up with Phil – another NoBo JMTer who is looking for hiking buddies now that his friend is heading home. We tell him he can join us, to catch up on the trail. He seems eager and repeatedly confirms our plan to meet at Red’s Meadow in two days. He then also decided to catch a later ferry so he can hang out with some other campers at VVR, so who knows if we’ll be seeing him again.
Eating breakfast outside, waiting for the ferry to come we sit among a group of hikers decked out in REI safari gear comparing notes from paper guidebooks. The men sit around and begin proclaiming – which is what passes for conversation apparently. One man proclaims that Selden Pass is the hardest of the whole trip. Another proclaims that anyone who hiked the PCT this year was an idiot. Anyone who hikes alone has a death wish. On and on it goes. A clean tourist from San Francisco comes by and asks me if I ever see any bears while hiking. Before I can say that I’ve seen five bears this year alone a big shaggy man proclaims that you never see bears in the sierras any more. Mild mannered Keith nods along in apathetic non-agreement, I tune out of the conversation and read.
When the ferry arrives – a covered pontoon boat that’s been subject to enthusiastic but poorly conceived repair jobs – the boat captain shouts unintelligibly at us and we follow him down to the ramp, board, and set off. No safely briefings here. Although you hardly need to be told that falling into a lake with a full backpack isn’t a great way to start you day. The captain is a surly, young man, wearing army issue boots, camo pants, and the civilian approximation of a high and tight cut. I cannot tell if he’s actually served, or if he’s simply one of the legions of young men who have cultivated a romantic ideology of the armed forces and donned an outfit to match. He puts in headphones as soon as we’re in the boat and then does his best to pretend we’re not here.
The ferry ride takes 30 minutes and then we’re all stumbling onto an empty sand beach and it’s time to hike.
REI Safari and Co head out down the trail while Keith and I putz around, tighten our straps, doing a thousand little backpack adjustments. I for one, would like to give the proclaimers as wide a birth as possible.
Soon enough we’re hiking. Sooner than I would have liked we’re in a trail train behind the REI White Dudes Who Know Everything Posse. Their pace is relaxed and I’m content to move slowly while I adjust to the weight of 8 days of food I’m carrying. Eventually they stop to let us pass, looking put out, like they had somehow done us a favor for which they should be thanked. We don’t thank them, we just hike on, having been given a great – though unintentional gift – the chance to freely bash these new people without any risk of retribution. It’s a lovely way to spend the steep climb up Silver Pass.
The approaching weekend is apparent on the trail too. A young family with a skittish dog who wants to be my friend so long as I’m actively eating beef jerky. Young couples from the city with their cotton hoodies and over-filled backpacks. Packs of young men hammering down the trail, oblivious to the world, with impotent boom boxes bleating bad reggae out to the trees.
Halfway through the day we decide to wait out the heat lounging in the shade near a creek and Keith finally get’s the external validation of hikers jealously eyeing his hammock.
When we finally move on its mid-afternoon, covering the last five miles up and over the pass, and down to Chief Lake.
Our home for the night is a secluded little spot on the far side of the lake, nestled between the waters of Chief Lake and the granite cliffs behind it. The water here is so blue and so shockingly clear at the same time. How does that work? Below us the valley is settled in a thin patina of smoke, some of the first evidence we’ve seen of the wildfires burning just to the north of us.
