July 13th, 2019
Distance: 15 Miles
Start: Deer Creek, Mile 65
Camp: Camp near creek below Silver Pass, mile 79
We started out with a slow morning at Deer Creek. It was a seriously gorgeous spot and I think we were both a little reluctant to leave, but alas. Gotta get the miles in. My various aches and pains were always the worst in the mornings, and I'll admit I cried a bit during the first few miles before the ibuprofen kicked in. I was consciously grateful for the absence of snow on the trail, and the lack of bugs.
This was the first day that we became really aware of the changing environment around us. At this point, we had walked around 50 miles, give or take. Banner Peak was no longer a figure on the distant horizon (a bummer, really. I had a total fascination with that mountain and enjoyed its constant company for a few days). When we were at lower elevations, we passed through some fields of purple wildflowers, and even above 10,000 feet there were sprays of pink and blue in the granite.
We stopped for lunch at Duck Creek, happily gnawing on the dried mangoes and jerky that we had picked up the day before. We also filtered some creek water and filled our bottles, talked about how much we missed our dogs, and laid in the sun for a bit. Lunch breaks were usually my favorite ritual of the day.
Later in the day we passed Purple Lake, and it was so pretty we decided to take a break there too. The lake reminded me an awful lot of the alpine lakes back home, like bright blue gems nestled in the mountains. The theme of the day ended up being lakes.
We also passed the iconic Virginia Lake, but didn’t linger too long because it was so damn windy up there. We hustled through, and descended a zig zagging portion of the trail into a breathtaking valley. Throughout the day we had decided we wanted to beat the previous day’s 12 miles, so we were hustling.
After we passed Fish Creek, we had a little climb before setting up camp roughly a mile below Silver Pass. We ended up getting 15 miles in, with more changes in elevation than any other day before. It really felt like we earned our dinner that evening, but sadly ate huddled in the tent, hiding from the mosquitoes again. We would be doing our third pass of the trip in the morning.
