Central California
Starting: Section H11 - Evolution Lake
Ending:  Section H14 - Top of Selden Pass

Couple of very wet near misses today. The first involved the crossing of Evolution Creek (creek? you mean raging torrent...) I got to the crossing 15 minutes ahead of Pete and began the ford 10 yards upstream as suggested in Yogi's guidebook. The water level was up to my ball. Singular. I am probably the first ever PCT hiker who could say that (FYI, I am a Stage IIIa testicular cancer survivor-I photoblogged the experience here.).

The water moved with deceptive force & velocity. I was hanging on for dear life. The water kept pushing me back and I reached the opposite bank 10 yards downstream of where I began.

The 2nd wet near miss involved getting caught in rain/hail mix on the ascent to Selden pass. The day had been hot and the first drops to hit us felt great. I was soon soaked however, and what we thought would be a quick shower turned into a steady rain. Chilled, I stopped to put on a jacket, but instead of my WATERPROOF gore-tex, I grabbed my WATER-RESISTANT windshirt. It too was soaked after 20 minutes as we continued with the climb.

We stopped at the upper meadow to put on more layers. I put on my gore-tex over my now soaking clothes. Smart Rob, really smart. We had agreed not to go above the timberline if it was still raining, but we could see blue sky at the top of the pass and continued on.

All I could think about was my broken tent & ways to jury-rig a shelter with my rain fly and trekking poles. Luckily a shelter wasn't needed, as the rain never reached the top of the pass where we set up camp.

Tomorrow Vermillion Valley Resort & some good food...