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The day begins with more elevation loss on a wonderfully scenic trail.
We make a creek crossing around 6.30 am, and then when we come to another, larger creek to cross soon after, we realize that we just crossed the upper and lower forks of Sphinx Creek and that we never made it to Sphinx Creek last night. Our camp site last night was actually a small unnamed creek. I’m a little discouraged because that means today is going to be longer than we thought. But when Dean looks closely at the topographical lines on the map and says we’ll be gaining 2,000 feet later in the day, my heart really sinks. Oh well, we are going down right now, and it’s beautiful, so I will enjoy it while it lasts! We move onto a very grand and majestic sort of giant granite staircase going very steeply down towards Bubbs Creek. The views are magnificent. I make a mental note to myself to never under any circumstances hike upwards on this trail. We haven’t seen any people at all. Finally we reach Bubbs Creek and stop under some huge trees for breakfast.
We’re a couple of miles away from a trailhead where the Rae Lakes Loop begins and ends, so we start seeing other hikers after this. We spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon following the trail along Bubbs Creek, and it is delightful. We are walking upstream, so we gain about 2,000 feet, but it’s fairly gradual over 6 miles. We camp on Bubbs Creek at Junction Meadow. Late in the afternoon, I am filling up water bottles at the creek when Dean rushes up behind me and points across the water. I see bushes rustling, and then a beautiful, dark chocolate colored bear. And behind her, a tiny black cub!
When she notices us, she stops for a while and sniffs the air. Dean has the bear spray out just in case. She is very close, but having the water between us seems to help her to not feel too threatened. We watch them walking across a log together and disappearing into the forest. A very magical experience!
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