At the junction below Halfmoon Lake we recharged our water-bottles and continued upward to Crown Pass. The views along the length of the Sierra began opening up near the crest, with dark, snow-streaked peaks of Ritter, Banner and southern Yosemite hovering at the edge of sight. Once over the pass, an equally vague impression of peaks south to the Kings-Kern Divide floated over the nearer peaks of the Monarch Divide. We worked our way down to Crown Lake among more wildflowers, shooting as we went. I was walking through a muddy patch when I noticed that the human footprints had some unshod company: I showed the others some rather large bear tracks, and we all turned from the flowers and took photos of the mud. Shortly thereafter we saw a couple of deer, our first animals larger than marmots we'd seen since day two.

We'd come quite a ways by now, and the route showed the path following the stream from Crown and Scepter lakes for a few miles. The actual path chose a higher, drier route, and when we finally encountered the stream we dropped our packs and searched for our last camp. Frank found several small sites above the trail, and we set up among the trees, ate quickly, and passed out in no time.