Today we venture into the valley of Darwin. All the features in this area are somehow named after Darwin’s work on Evolution theory. The only concern about evolution is the creek by that name. There are youtube videos of people swimming across this thing during high water years.
Passed 3 JMTer campsite between 8 and 9. They all pretty much looked like this.
The evolution ford turned out to be ho hum. Wide crossing, but the water was only slightly above the knees. I could see how this crossing would be miserable if there was more water. Next was a big drop below the meadow. That slow flowing stream turned into this.
After dropping into the next valley, I found a couple photographing this rock. They said it was THE John Muir rock. Hmm. Snapped a photo for posterity.
The next climb began to Seldon pass. Another 3k up to 10.9k. I really wasn’t that into it today. I just wanted it behind me. Here are a couple pics on the way up.
I think there was a better view from the top, but I just wanted to get to camp today. I was bounding along some dull trail then I turned the corner and saw this.
There was a second, bigger lake right after it call Lake Marie. I ran into a bunch of folks camping in the woods next to it. Looked lame. Fortunately the campsite we had picked out was slightly above it on a exposed rock/sand combo. We were the Winners today.
Today was a 20 miler with 3.5k elevation change. Winning.