Timothy Gulch - Forest Road 8/20/10 27.6 miles

We got out at about 6:30am to push for a long day and try to make it to the post office tomorrow by 1:30pm, before it closed. WE passed Kiwi, Bacon and Meander as they were packing up from camp. They were again surprised to see us that early. We saw our first bear today as it came barreling down the hill, about 20 yards ahead of us. We continued on through a pass and on to climb a beautiful ridge. Saw another bear. What a day! We took lunch at a nice meadow with a huge rock in it. We still had 15 miles to go. We passed Paradise Lake, which it was, but the water tasted dirty. Came around a corner and heard a nice creek, then I heard something in the bushes. Another bear and a cub! We kept walking quietly and then they saw us! The cub ran up a tree, right next to the tree. We backed up slowly to avoid exciting the mama. We watched her for about 20 minutes, before the cub came back down the tree. They ran back into the bushes and we continued on. We couldn't believe and my heart was thumping! We sat down on a log to take a break later and heard something up in the tree. Bear #5 and he was just snorting and sniffing us, as he hung out in the tree. We decided to move on before we had our snack. We sat and ate on up the trail and two Sobo's sat down and talked with us, Jason and Kasandra. We traded North stories for South stories and continued on. We had 9 miles to go. It was going to be a long afternoon. We stopped to get water and then saw another bear rustling right before the trail. Total count today - 6! I promise that was the last one! We walked until dark and put on our headlamps, walking about 5 minutes later. We set up, had dinner, which I burned just a little, but it kind of tasted like fried chicken. We are tired after our longest and possibly most exciting day in the Marble Mountains!! -CM