B-E-A-UTIFUL

After loading up on all the free food we could find we climbed out of the valley and up Seldon Pass. On the way we passed beautiful lakes full of wildflowers.

The views never stop, and neither do the climbs. :) 

We climbed the next day until we got to Lake Virginia. It was a beautiful spot to camp. Mountains and a crystal clear lake. 

But civilization was on our mind. We raced into Red's Meadow and called the families. Unfortunately, Nathan took a wrong turn and ended up putting in a long day, but eventually made it. 

We took advantage of Mammoth's awesome transportation system and got into town, filled up on burgers, and got our packages. Then we called Sugar Momma, a wonderful trail angel. She gave us a place to crash and let us have an evening of binging on Netflix. It was wonderful. 

With a day as wonderful as that we decided to stay one more day. Mammoth is full of free trolleys, great food, and awesome people. Plus Sugar Momma made amazing bread. 

We tore ourselves out of Mammoth the next day. It was a struggle but before leaving we had to see Devil's Postpile. It is this rock formation that looks like a church organ of rocks coming out of the ground. 

Nathan nerded out, Emily met a friend from Washington, and I ate Twizzlers. It was a good day. We got a couple more miles in and camped at Rosalie Lake. It was stunning. 

We took the John Muir Trail alternative in this section because we heard it was beautiful. It lived up to the rage. There were lakes every mile and each one took my breath away. 

We passed through the beauty and into the next section: Yosemite. 

But first, both of the water filtering systems broke. We had two Sawyer Squeezes and both of them stopped working on the same day. Luckily, my mom sent me with a LifeStraw, which I had yet to use. It is only useful for drinking sips but it gave us drinking water for the day. We boiled the rest of the water and let it sit out all night. It was a problem solving activity, but we figured it out :) 

Due to the odd water situation and our desire to get to Tuolumne Meadows, we flew through the miles. We made it for lunch and even had a sighting of Jared Leto. We spent the night with our trail friends and celebrated all the climbing we just made it through.