We started our morning with a cup of coffee brewed on a wood burning stove inside VVR’s little store/restaurant.

We picked up a few extra days of food to make it to our next resupply point, Mammoth Lakes. Then after packing up, we realized that in a couple days we would be arriving in Mammoth on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. We heard the town is really crowded and hotel prices skyrocket, so we bought an extra day of food and decided to hike fewer miles each day so we would arrive on Monday.

After packing our supplies we hiked (slowly) out of VVR, taking care to watch for squirrels!

The side trail back to the PCT had recently burned and was incredibly frustrating to walk through. There were downed trees, loose rock and ash everywhere for several miles.

We made our way back to the PCT where we found the opposite of burn sections, water crossings! There were several icy streams throughout the afternoon.

We were lucky to find ways over some of them.

But weren’t as lucky for others…

At one point we had to rock hop a stream at the base of a waterfall.

We ran into snow again as we climbed back up in elevation.

We camped with a nice view of the sky changing color as the sun set.