Day 58 – Near-o at VVR

Miles: 878.7 to 884.4

Trail Miles: 5.7

Miles Hiked: 7.0

It felt so good to wake up on a bed.

Even if I was still in my sleeping bag, at least I had slept on a normal mattress. At VVR, you could camp for free, but for an additional fee you could stay in a tent cabin that had 6 twin mattresses. It was money well spent – we’d arrived so late that by the time we’d eaten dinner it was going on 9pm. No one was in the mood to set up a tent.

The night before had been a Sunday, and the onslaught of hikers had eaten the restaurant out of 3 of the 5 dinner menu offerings. Vermillion Valley Resort (VVR) is very remote and not easily accessible – the nearest paved road was over 50 miles away. This morning was similar – they ran out of eggs midway through breakfast. Hiker Hunger is a very real phenomenon.

The VVR Restaurant post-onslaught

I had spoken with the owners the night before. According to them we were the leading edge of ‘the herd’ – the majority bubble of thru hikers. We’d passed through it between Agua Dulce and Kennedy Meadows (Miles 452 and 702), where many hikers stopped and waited for the Sierra snow to melt.

In the restaurant, there were a bunch of photo albums on a shelf. They were labeled by year and contained pictures of hikers. The earliest I saw was ‘02 & ‘03. At breakfast I over heard Breaker, a fellow hiker who was leafing through an old album, say something about ‘team estrogen’. I didn’t know what she was referring to but the phrase brought back a memory. In 1997, when I hiked the JMT with Betty’s Mom and 4 others, we’d referred to ourselves as Team Estrogen and the Pack Mules. We were 4 women and 2 men. (Back then the ratio of male to female hikers was heavily skewed towards men; whereas now (in my opinion) it was closing in on 60/40.) The Pack Mules jokingly referred to Joe and Paul, the two men, who carried the heavier group equipment.

About 20 min later, Renaissance and Violet, two other hikers, were leafing through the same album at another table. They called across the room, “Hey Face Plant, did you hike this before in ‘97? There’s a picture here that looks just like you.”

1997 – Hohn Muir Trail

There it was. The Polaroid picture from 1997 of Team Estrogen and the Pack Mules. Back in the day before the numbers skyrocketed and thousands hiked the trail, it was tradition to have your photo taken here before leaving. They no longer do that but I recreated it as best I could. It was funny yet bittersweet: I wished Betty’s Mom was hiking with me (even if we’d be arguing as we often do).

2018 – PCT – missing Team Estrogen & the Pack Mules

Anyways, after 3 meals at VVR, a shower and laundry,it was time to go. We had to wait for the afternoon ferry. Their big 25 person pontoon boat was still out of commission, so they were shuttling hikers 6 miles across the lake 4-5 at a time in a small John boat. There was a line but we were lucky enough to get the second shuttle. We were back on the trail by 4pm. We had 7 miles to go.

The Lake Edison shuttle -me, Scooch & Painter

We camped just below silver Pass. The plan was to push hard – 22 miles to the Mammoth Pass trailhead. We’d be in Mammoth tomorrow night and I’d be with HH again!

Sunset – Below Silver Pass