Day 5: More Passes To and From Buchanon Creek

Rain and mosquitoes, my favorite morning combination of suffering. I've never seen such an impressive amount of bugs in a mega mid before, needless to say it wasn't a place that encouraged loitering in the morning. We packed up and headed up valley. Shortly after starting out Lynn says, "bear" we all stop and about 100 yards ahead of us is 3 bears, a mama with two cubs that looked at least a year old. We backed away, and they stood on their hind legs to get a better look. Although they were initially curious, they decided they didn't like us either and headed up the opposite side of the valley, thankfully in a different direction than we were trying to go.

 

 

Ryan Looking Down to Buchanon Creek

 

Walking up the Buchanon was a welcome relief from the sponge land tussock crap we had been unable to stray from, it was not however a smooth river bar, virtually no sandy sections. Lots of jumbled rocks, wherever we saw snow we changed course to walk on it.

 

As we winded up the river into the clouds, it narrowed and the mountain of scree came in closer.

 

The pass I'm sure was spectacular as we were at 6,000 feet surrounded by big mountains we could only see on the map. I always feel like when I miss the view I need to go back, this trip might be the exception. It felt like we were super remote and everything was farther away than it looked!

We descended the pass into another valley with another creek we ping ponged down and across. There were some wet aching feet, and no duct tape or blister remedy could withstand the constant wetness. We stopped shy of the West fork of the little Delta in a pause from the rain on a flat spot that seemed made for the mega mid.

 

T.?:D.14:EG.2720

A little geekery courtesy of Garmin