Day 10

July 12, 2012 (Alexandra) I feel as though the trail &nature are testing us. Today we reached and passed the 100 mile mark. We awoke this morning & hiked through upper bear meadows which has the WORST mosquito infestation I have ever seen or could possibely imagine - around 100 Mosquitos swarming me and then another hundred on Jasin - swarming us - in our eyes, nose, mouth - driving you insane! I wore my rain jacket because it was the only clothing items that I owned that Mosquitos couldn't bite through. We also had to wade across a creek tht came up to my knees. By lunch time we made it to the top of Sheldon pass, a more gentle Up on our side of it. Once we crossed the pass we sat down and ate macaroni and cheese dinner as we are a day away from JMT and have extra dinners. As we were eating lunch just below the pass we watched storm clouds coming in- we got moving before it started to rain. We were ready! Rain jackets on & and pack covers on we walked through th heavy drizzle. Down the man we hiked all afternoon until we reached one mile from MTR. We were exhausted from th climb down and 12 mile day so we set up camp. Storm clouds began to build & we heard a lot of thunder. From our camp we nervously watched the storm approach. Lots of lightening, lots of thunder - and I'm terrified. The rain is really loud on the tent& we watched the of rain come towards us from across the valley. We have never been in this tent before in a storm so this is it's first test. Pretty soon it started hailing. After 45 min the storm ended and we were treated to a beautiful sunset. Love, Thunder on the mtn run boys run! (Jasin) today was a good day, it had its downfalls but overall not a bad day. After a good nights sleep and feeling clean - I woke up first again and Alex was slow to get up. It wasn't very cold but it was overcast - a change from the usually blue skies. After the normal routine we hit the trail. The Mosquitos were relentless! Alex was in tears and I was really not happy because they just wouldn't let up for almost 2 hours of hiking. It was like hiking in a cloud of them. We couldn't stop or risk having all of our blood sucked out. I swear that with one slap on our arm we could kill 5 of them. After we got a little higher the Mosquitos started to disappear. We made it to Seldon Pass 10,880 by just afternoon as it was a pretty easy climb. We decided then to shoot for MTR or as close as we could get (another 6 miles). We stopped for a nice lunch of Mac and cheese since we are a few days ahead of schedule. The sky was still gray and we started to hear some grumbles so we started moving. We got to Sallie keys lakes before it started raining, not hard but enough for rain gear. This part of the trail was fairly flat so we moved quickly for about an hour. The rainthr let up and it was nice and cool to hike in. That's when we hit the never ending downhill of switchbacks. At one point the map fell out of my pocket and had to go back up 1.5 switchbacks to get it. We finally made it to the junction with MTR . We decided to camp by the junction as it had been a long day. The site is great as it overlooks the whole valley and is pretty flat. The water source is a small spring that gave some tanish colored water. We had some extra pitas froma lunch and had two of Alex's breakfast bars for dessert YUMMM "lots" of calories today. A thunderstorm just passed and had Alex nervous because of the lightening. It rained pretty good and even hailed. Tomorrow we hit MTR for our next food drop and do a few more miles. Alex is nervous about the next part of the trip with all the high passes and no more stops for food. I am a little nervous as well because we will truly be on our own for next ten days. Here is to heavy packs tomorrow!