August 14-Ugh! More of this damn food!

Miles Hiked: 14.29 Total: 122.88
Elevation Gain: 1784 ft

"In summer the days go by in almost constant brightness, cloudless sunshine pouring over the forest roof, while in the shady depths there is the subdues light of perpetual morning." ~John Muir

OUR NATIONAL PARKS - pub. 1901

[John]
We broke camp before the mosquitoes thawed out from the night before, taking some photos of the peaceful still beauty of the lake and surrounding peaks reflected in it.

After ascending Selden Pass and stopping a while to snack, enjoy the view and take some photos, we began the long descent into MTR. It was getting drier and the steep canyons of Kings Canyon National Park were coming into view, but we did encounter some pretty aspen groves with prolific wildflowers on the way down.

Descending Seldon Pass

We spent a couple hours at MTR, where southbound and northbound hikers were converging to pick up their food drops or pick through the hiker buckets chock full of all kinds of food and supplies other hikers were discarding. Much to our surprise Karen and “kids,” who we hadn’t seen since Lyell Canyon seven days prior, were among those picking through the buckets. And, shortly after we arrived, Toshio and Masao showed up.

We left about half of the food we had shipped there. We gave away all the Landjaeger sausages (Karen’s group ended up with them) as we just couldn’t stomach eating any more of them! We did recognize that the remaining 100 plus miles of the trail would be more demanding, requiring more calories, but we couldn’t fathom the thought of eating more sausages, the thought of which made both of us feel nauseous.

Looking back at Marie Lake from Seldon Pass

Regardless, the weight of our bear canisters doubled or tripled, and we eventually began climbing again sometime mid-afternoon. We continued up the canyon, hiking alongside the roaring south fork of the San Joaquin River, stopping to soak our feet along the way. We camped among the trees along the river that night about a mile short of the Goddard Canyon Trail.

[Christi]
Well, it's become very clear that the food choices for this trip were not good ones. I'm sure it's a combination of being too tired to eat and just not liking the food we had but, regardless, the food situation was not good and wouldn't be getting any better until we exited the trail. Another lesson learned, I suppose.

We must have left 15 lbs. of food behind at MTR, mostly flour tortillas, Landjaeger sausages, olive oil and some more bulky dinners. We left with cous cous, cheese, trail bars, smoothies, hot chocolate, and GORP to sustain us the last 8-10 days on the trail.