Day 75

14.6 miles hiked
 
Today was a very hard morning for me. I slept crappy because of nightmares and such. I wanted to just stay in my sleeping bag all day, cry and not move at all. I cried while packing up camp. I cried while hiking the first couple miles. I’m not sure why I was feeling so terrible but I figured my nightmares had to be a good indicator. 

The climb today was Mather pass. This was my first time hiking with mosquitos not leaving me alone. Not going to lie. It made the morning even worse for me. 

After a couple miles before the big climb up the pass I started to feel a bit better mentally because the views were gorgeous. And we got to see where we were the day before and how far we had hiked so that was pretty cool. 
The actual climb up Mather pass was only 1.5 miles or so. But it was slow going because of the switch backs, elevation gain, and sketchy terrain with lots of uneven rocks and stones. I spotted my first Pika today too! 
When I arrived at the top I was so tired. Exhausted really. But so so rewarding! 
We saw another marmot at the top going for our bags almost but he went past it to the bushes. 

The decent was BRUTAL. We descended the long “golden staircase” for most of the day. It was hard on the ankle for sure. 

We rested at a beautiful lake spot for our lunch and dried out our tents. Woodstock quickly went into the lake before lunch too. 

Then we packed up and started hiking again. 
I wanted to camp sooner at the creek 2.5 miles before our original campsite, but Woodstock got me to push on by convincing me that the original campsite I chose up ahead was much prettier and closer to our pass tomorrow to get to town. 
I’m glad she did though! This campsite was amazing. It was so pretty by the meadow. Grouse meadows campsite it was called. 

The coolest part of the day had to be hiking with the deer (Bambi). For like 20 minutes he hiked along the trail in front of us. It was pretty cool. 

Once we got to camp we met a man named Travis. He is a JMT hiker going SOBO. Base weight is basically nothing! Pretty cool dude! I got his contact because he is in Lake Tahoe and said he might be able to trail angel us :) 

We chatted with him till just past hiker midnight and then went to sleep :)