Day 72: discouraged

by Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Day 72
Miles: 24
From boulder creek to Pennsylvania creek

Up at a reasonable hour – it’s a relief every time I manage this. The trail takes us away from the creek, through sunny meadows heavy with scented, green air and yellow light. J stops and points at the ground, “bear”. The scat is black, looks fresh.
  “Good thing we’re still doing bear-hangs. Maybe we should take them more seriously.”
  “Probably!”

We’re still in granite country, but a huge basalt dome pops straight out of the ground next to the trail, rises up to a peak. We stop and stare, puzzled, then argue about how it probably formed for a while. I like to make up outrageous (but plausible) scenarios, then stand by them, hell or highwater. J does not approve.

Wildflowers and mountain peaks, whatever. I’m exhausted. J and I bicker about something or nothing – the sun is hot – the trail is steep. Lunchtime and a rally.

The granite whirls back to volcanics again, spires and ridges like the castle of an evil sorceress. When we’re almost to Ebbetts Pass and the highway crossing, J says, “do you think there will be trail magic there?”
  “Ha, if only every highway crossing we get to, there will be a taco truck and cooler of ice cream.”
  “Shouldn’t get my hopes up. I probably shouldn’t just go around expecting for strangers to give me things.”
  “Probably.”

Even so, when we get to the highway and there’s nothing, we’re both terribly disappointed. We sit down on the side of the road to feel sorry for ourselves and eat some snacks. We sit for a while. We’re thinking about getting up when a truck stops in the pullout. “Do you think the back of his truck is full of strawberries, and he’s coming to give us some?”
  “Uh, no,” J replies.
  “Are you sure? I think he’s coming to give us strawberries.” But when the guy gets out of his truck and starts walking towards us carrying a box, I’m as surprised as anybody.

  “You want some V8? Is this a good place to leave it, do you think the other hikers will find it?”
  “Uh, yeah. Of course!” We tell him, a bit surprised.
  “I was out volunteering for the death ride today, we have all these extra V8s. Thought you might enjoy them.”
  “Yeah, we can always use more vegetables. Thanks!”
  “No problem!” the guy says add he leaves.

“Ha! How about that! You asked for trail magic, and the trail delivered!” I say to J. “And is it that obvious that we’re thru-hikers? He didn’t even ask. Are we that dirty?”
  “I think we are.”

The guy went back to his truck, but he’s coming back. “Do you guys drink beer?”
  “Yes!” Says J.
  The guy takes out three beers from a small cooler and tosses them in the box with the V8s. “Drink what you want, or leave it for the next hikers!”
  “Thanks man!”

He takes off, we sit and laugh, drink V8s till we’re silly. I don’t even like V8. When we’re sloshing with liquid tomatoes we get up to go. We’ve only made it 100 yards when we find a cooler, marked: trail magic. More trail magic! It’s stocked by Meadow Mary, with sodas, cookies, apples!
  “What?” I yell. “MORE trail magic?” We laugh and laugh, eat apples and cookies and drink Coca-Colas till we’re mostly liquid, full of vegetables and sugar and bubbles, then slosh down the trail.

We slosh past beautiful lakes that we can’t stop at – too many miles to go. We slosh past more spires and towers and rugged peaks – too many miles to go. Past wildflowers and cedars on cliffs and sunsets, pass, pass, pass. My feet feel like they’ve been beaten with hammers and my hipbones scream, but we keep going. Thru-hiking, man. It’s making me crazy.

We stop at the first water in a while, where another thru-hiker is camped. She introduces herself as Blue Butterfly – a solo female hiker, 67 years old. This is what tough looks like (unassuming, in quikdry clothes). We talk about the trail for a minute. She didn’t see the bear scat today, just the bear! Then we commiserate about the toll it’s taking on us. We are both so discouraged, so tired, so worn down.
  “Hold it, hold it, hold it!” J interrupts. “How many miles did you hike today,” he asks, turning to Blue Butterfly.
  “Twenty-one.”
  “And you’ve done twenty-four,”.He says, turning to me. “Of course you’re tired! You’re hiking crazy miles! But you’re doing it! You both need to cut this sh*t out!”

Blue Butterfly and I look at each other sheepishly. He’s right. We’re tired, but we’re doing it, doing this, this thru-hike. Maybe we should just be proud of ourselves…

We leave Blue Butterfly to hike another mile to the next creek, where we find a beautiful camping spot, all to ourselves. We finally did the twenty-four miles that I wanted us to do all the other days. It feels good (and even better to be sitting down). Tomorrow is my birthday, and although we won’t make it town, we’ve decided to do a birthday challenge: twenty-nine miles for my 29th birthday. The crux will be getting up on time. Maybe I’ve got this.

image

Bear scat

image

image

Getting water

image

image

image

Wildflowers are off the hook!

image

Trail magic

image

Share

Day 71: angels

by Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , Leave a comment

Day 71
Miles: 21
From emigrant wilderness to boulder creek
Sonora pass

It’s morning! I’m happy to be here. I slept well. There are no mosquitoes. It’s brilliant and blue and I’m still tired but maybe – maybe – I can do this. I’m probably going to starve to death before getting to South Lake Tahoe for our next resupply, but maybe that will be ok too.

J and I hike over and around the volcanic peaks, luxuriating in the refreshing change in lithology. “Whoa!” exclaims J, as he leans over and picks up a rock from the slope next to the trail. He holds up an anethyst, glowing purple in the morning, big as his finger.
  “Do you think it’s from here? Or that somebody dropped it?”

The crystal is dirty, with some big flaws – it doesn’t seem like something that’s been carried around. Hard to say though. We find a rock with nearly microscopic crystals inside a vug, but nothing else like the amethyst. “The universe is rewarding us again!” I declare. J rolls his eyes.

The kaleidoscope of volcanic rocks is putting a serious crimp in J’s pace. We find an area of rock where the volcanic vesicles have been infilled with quartz. The little quartz nuggets have weathered out and lay all around like tiny dinosaur eggs. We’ve caught up with our friend Aloha and we point it out: “check out the cool rocks!”

We chat for a bit, then he asks us if we’re planning on getting off at Sonora Pass to hitch into Bridgeport.
  “No, we’re going all the way to South Lake Tahoe,” I reply.
  “Maybe we should though,” adds J. “We don’t really have enough food.”
  “I’m getting off at Sonora Pass,” says Aloha. “I have a ton of extra food. Do you want it?”

Offering food to another thru-hiker is possibly the very definition of generosity. “Wait, are you serious?” we ask. “You can use the food on your next leg.”
  “I’m actually getting off trail,” he explains. “It’s time to get back to my family.”
  “A thousand miles?” I ask, then add, “what a way to end your trip.” We’re wandering among volcanic spires and meltwater lakes, rocky slopes of wildflowers, sweeping vistas of before and behind, incredible skies, sheer dropoffs.

Aloha smiles, “not too bad, huh?” We agree to meet him at Sonora Pass, then continue on. Two day hikers coming up the trail tell us that there’s trail magic at the pass. “Trail magic?” J and I yell excitedly. We’re starving. We haven’t been eating enough for days. We take off running down the last two miles.

That lasts about thirty seconds, then, panting heavily, we walk very quickly down the switchbacks. Sure enough, where the trail crosses the highway there’s a sign welcoming PCT hikers.

The trail angel Mack, gets us Gatorade and chips, then looks at us. “Two hot dogs?” she asks, holding up two fingers. My heart plummets. I could clean out an entire hot dog stand right now. One lonely little hot dog would just be a tease! Mack looks over at J and says again, “two hot dogs?” She holds up two fingers on her other hand, then puts her two hands together – “so four hot dogs?”
  “Yes please!” we chorus. Hooray! Mack tells us she does trail magic here every year, for just one day. Today is our lucky day.

Aloha shows up at the pass, where his partner is waiting for him. He loads us down with nuts, snacks, and an entire armful of clif bars. (I’ve never been so happy about clif bars in my life. Eat them for a couple months then see how YOU feel about them.) After re-provisioning us, he tosses something small at J. “What’s this?” J asks, as he unzips the small pouch. It’s a mosquito net. A nine year old with a new xbox on Christmas morning couldn’t have smiled wider. “A mosquito head-net!” he laughs. “But how did you I needed one?”

Aloha had remembered a passing comment I made to him several days before about mosquitoes.

Trail angels come in so many different forms and appearances, but all are tied together with the generosity and help they provide for hikers – for a bunch of smelly people who probably don’t deserve it. I’m racking up a serious tab with the universe.

Heavy clouds, building all morning, are threatening us. Mack tells us that the rain up here, this time of year, comes from the monsoons in Arizona. Monsoons! Thinking about home and the beautiful summer rains makes me homesick.

Back on the trail. This isn’t the end of the road for us, not yet. Back to the mountains and views and flowers, so, so many flowers! It starts to drizzle, so I repack my pack with my trash compactor bag liner. We run into another hiker and – holy smokes – it’s the annoying man. The one we ran into twice in Kings Canyon! He’s here again! He doesn’t remember us, and we proceed to have the exact same annoying conversation with him that we’ve already had twice. There’s some sort of trail rule, where the people you love you never see again, but people who drive you crazy will pop back up, over and over again. There are exceptions, but in general…

The landscape whirls from volcanic rocks to granite again, stunning and familiar. The walking becomes instantly harder – it’s just so much harder on your feet.

I wanted to do 24 miles today, but settle for 21. I just can’t do it. My feet are excruciating. My hipbones are backsliding into bruises and open sores. I’m exhausted. The optimism of this morning seems impossibly far away. Did I really think I could do this? One day at a time. I’m so glad I’m not hungry anymore.

image

image

image

image

Share

Day 70: things turn around

by Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Day 70
Miles: 21.5
From falls creek to Emigrant wilderness

No fish, lost flies, popped squeeze bladder, spilled dinner, burned windshirt, not enough miles,fogs of mosquitoes, tired feet, raw hipbones… and a leaky air mattress to top off the night. I wake up on the ground, cold and achey. Bad night’s sleep. I hope this isn’t a trajectory. I might not make it 1000 miles.

No point getting up early with this kind of luck. My exhaustion is sitting on me like a 200lb man. Or perhaps like several: one for each of the passes. I’m so tired. I feel stretched – thin. My pants are sagging badly at the waist, but it’s not just my butt that’s disappearing. My motivation is thin, my energy is thin, the thread of this journey, the thing that’s pulling me forwards – it’s thin too, pulling out like taffy. I do not know if I can do this trail. I will give it everything, but I do not know if I will have enough to give. I’ve given my pound(s) of flesh, will this take bone?

We finally get going. J is sick of being hustled and having my neuroticism passed onto him – we hike off in two separate sulks.

Around eleven we come up on Dorothy Lake, like a vision of miles past. The lake lies shimmering under ice carved ridges and spires. The water reflects the black shadows of the thunderheads building to the north – hovering at the meeting of blue skies behind us and black skies ahead. I repack my entire pack using a trash bag as a liner.

The thunder rolling ahead of us makes us nervous as we scurry across Dorothy Pass, but the weather holds.  Suddenly we’ve passed the sign that marks the end boundary of Yosemite National Park. That’s it. The High Sierra is behind us. Of all the parts of the trail, that section is the one I worried about the most, prepared for the most, thought about the most… just like that it’s over. It’s strange to have things behind us, instead of feeling the length of the entire trail still reaching out before us. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at that, with a thousand miles under our belts. Just like that, we’re standing at the 1000 mile mark.

1000 miles! Not even halfway.

We’re hardly out of Yosemite and the rocks change. Goodbye granite… there’s a huge bear claw mark across a tree, so I point it out to J. J? Where’d he go? I wait. I wait. I start freaking out, and do the unthinkable: walk south. I finally find J five minutes later. He’d gotten distracted at the contact between the granite and the calcareous meta-seds.

Half an hour later, I’ve lost him again. At least, I think I have. I just stopped to look at this little waterfall next to the trail, then came back out to wait for J. I thought he was only a few minutes behind me, so he should be here by now. I walk back on the trail a bit – no sign of him. I walk forward – no sign. Did he pass me in the minute I was off trail? Does he think he’s behind me still? I walk back again, this time looking for his tracks, but it’s all gravel. I walk forward, doing my best Sherlock Holmes impression, nose to the ground, until I convince myself that I’ve found his footprints. So he is ahead of me!

I think.

I feel panic rising. If he thinks he’s ahead of me, I’ll never catch him, we’ll both be running down the trail after each other. If I’m wrong, and he’s still behind me, I could be running away from him. I start booking it down the trail, eyes for nothing but footprints, J’s footprints. It rained up here earlier today, so the trail is really fresh, and I know I’m following a pair of Merrell Moabs, but Merrells are really popular shoes. “Dammit J,” I shout out loud, “wait for me! You haven’t seen my footprints in two miles, I know it!” I’m wearing a pair of Salomon crossmax shoes, and my tread is far more distinctive. I run, then walk slowly, torn between catching up with him, or letting him catch up with me. I cry and rage, worried and frustrated. I’ve been hustling J all day, bugging him to go faster – he probably thinks I’ve ditched him.

At what point do I stop and wait? If we both decide to stop and wait, we won’t find each that way either. J doesn’t even have maps for this area. The next water coming up, a little creek, it’s the last water for ten miles. I told that to J before we were separated, now I’m hoping he’s remembered. “Wait for me at the water, please!” I shout to the silent, dripping trees. If he’s not there, I’ll wait for him, long as it takes.

I come around the corner, to where the creek crosses the trail, and I see him. “J! J!” He opens his arms and catches me up, where I cry again, this time in relief. “You got ahead of me but I was behind you I was following your footprints why didn’t you wait for me I’ve been so worried I’m so glad I found you!” I blurt out all at once.

He explains his end – like I thought, he thought I was ahead of him, that I had ditched him. He’d been practically running down the trail trying to catch up with me. After while he realized he hadn’t seen any of my footprints in a long time and started freaking out himself. He’d made it to the last water and I wasn’t there. He’d left a note and gone ahead – no sign of me. He was on his way to look back down the trail when I got there.

“Let’s not get separated ever again ever,” I tell him, still holding onto him.
  “Yeah, let’s stay cheek-to-cheek for a while.” We’ve been driving each other a little bit crazy, but separation is worse.

The entire episode took an hour. “Worst hour of this trip yet,” J says.

I’m all frazzled still, but at least we made good time, right? We grab some water and start the switchbacks out of the valley. The sheer granite of Yosemite has been replaced with big basaltic cones with huge, smooth, brown sides. We climb the trail, a flat groove notched into the slope of talus, up, up.

It’s getting dark as we reach the top. There’s a man there, nothing but a tank top and running shorts and a small camelbak. What is he doing out here?

He turns out to be the support crew for Joe McConaughey (String Bean), the guy trying to break the PCT speed record this year. “He’s doing 44 miles a day right now,” he tells us. “He’d really like to do 45, but that last mile is just really tough, you know?”
  “Yeah,” we agree. “That last mile is tough for us too.” Of course, for us the difference is between 19 and 20 miles, but kind of the same.

It’s super steep up here, but I’d really like to camp. We discover a flat spot on a little saddle below the peaks, right at the timberline, where the trees grow bent over, windblown into shrubberies. We’re on the rim of a huge valley, lakes down below, the peaks of Yosemite, King’s Canyon, Sequoia, all stretching back in row after row of jagged spires and snow. The rainclouds of earlier have lifted and broke, and the setting sun drops beneath them to light up the entire place in incendiary hues. This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. This is the most beautiful place we’ve seen, here on the PCT.

“The universe was testing us, and we passed! Now it’s rewarding us!”
  “Gizmo, the universe is not personally interested in you,” J shoots me down.
  “Yes it is!” I laugh, buoyant, undeterred. “Look at this!” I sweep my arms around. I don’t really care the universe cares or not – this moment is perfect. Everything is perfect, is worth it. 1000 miles to end up here.

image

Dorothy Lake. Guess which way we’re headed…

image

1000 miles.

image

The waterfall I stopped to look at.

image

image

Bears in these woods.

image

image

image

Share

Day 69: a string of small catastrophes

by Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Day 69
Miles: 20
From volunteer peak to Falls Creek

We camped high, hoping to catch the first sun and ride it out of bed. It sort of works… on the trail by 8. I’ll take it. We hop back on the granite rollercoaster ride through Yosemite’s backcountry.

We’re not fast – not here – but we pass tons of people, section hikers and weekenders, mostly. Don’t be fooled, this trail is kicking our butts. I think we’re also low on food. Every time we eat take out all our food and look at it. The huge pile we dragged out of Tuolomne doesn’t seem so big anymore. We eat a few things out of one bag, a few things out of another… We put the bags away, a little hungry. I hope it’s enough.

It’s lovely here, granite with huge shear zones, a wonderland jumble of swells and domes and rock. Flowers line all the infernal stone staircases, like they hired a landscaper after the brute labor of laying stone. Atop seavey pass we swim in the small lakes there, then go down again, down Kerrick Canyon. I’ve stopped looking at the elevation profiles that come with our maps. What’s the point? When the trail goes up, I go up. When the trail goes down, I go down. When the trail goes around I go round and around and around and around and around. 

Coming from the other direction is a familiar face – Halfstep! He’d hitched to South Lake Tahoe for the fourth of July, now he’s hiking back to Tuolomne Meadows, where he’ll hitch back to South Lake Tahoe. It’s easier walking north of here, he says.

At Wilma lake we stop to fish. If we keep hiking, then maybe we’ll run out of miles before we run out of food. But if we can catch some fish, we’ll be ok too. I love to watch J cast, flicking his line further out over the water. No fish though. Nothing, nothing. The mosquitoes are horrendous, everywhere. I’m in full mosquito-armour: windshirt, hat, headnet. I’m still about to lose my mind. J is well down that road… No headnet. He flicks his line to cast and gets his fly stuck in a tree. It’s the only fly that has been getting any attention from the fish, so I stand on J’s hands and pull it out, crashing down myself. I get the fly out, and a bloody gash across my palm for the trouble. J loses the fly completely on his next cast.

Nerves shot from the sharp whine of mosquitoes in our ears, no miles made, no fish caught, it’s time to go. Except when we pass the outlet to the lake, full of trout. J loses another fly, loses his cool. He’s got the mosquito rage! Only cure is a good night’s sleep in a net tent. We take off, desperate to make just a few more miles before bed, and our sawyer squeeze water filter bladder slips out of his pack and pops. We watch the water spurt out. “Good thing we have a spare, huh?”

Not enough miles (never enough miles) we find a spot to camp. my feet feel terrible, shooting pains. My hipbones are screaming against the indignity of carrying my bear canister yet another day. So far I have managed to keep then from turning into open sores. Like last night, we look for a spot that will catch early morning light, hoping to ride the sunrise out of bed. J is setting up camp and I’m cooking dinner, I swat at a mosquito and flip the dinner out instead. Lipton pasta side Alfredo flavor, all spilled in the sand! I reach for the pot as it goes and burn a hole in my windshirt, the one my mother made me.

J and I just look at our food, in the sand. We don’t have enough as it is. So we scoop it up, pasta, Alfredo, sand, and put it back in the pot. We eat our dinner very slowly, discouraged, besieged by mosquitoes. What a day.

image

image

image

image

image

Share

Day 67: someplace old/ someplace new

by Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Day 67
Miles 10
From Tuolomne Meadows to meadow with rock

  “Wow, that’s quite a total!” Exclaims the man behind the cash register. J and I have opted to resupply at the Tuolomne Meadows store instead of mailing ourselves a box. It ain’t Wal-Mart prices, but it’s ok. We’re buying 150 miles of food – seven days if  we’re fast, eight days more realistically. Estimating a dollar a mile works pretty well to keep our bellies full, but we’ve only rung up $250 of groceries at the little store. The cashier might be impressed, but that leaves us fifty bucks short… We look at each other.
  “It’s a lot, but I don’t know if it’s enough,”  J replies.
  “Let’s just go repack it and see how it looks,” I tell him.

Overwhelmed by the piles of food that we divvy up, we do not buy any more food. We have to carry this mountain of pop tarts, mac n’cheese, crackers, candy bars. Surely it’s enough?

It’s a gray, drizzly day. Matches my attitude. We sit at a picnic table with some other PCT hikers, not hiking.

We’re approached by a man in a sweater, with a beautiful handlebar mustache. He’s an artist, taking portraits of people of Yosemite. Today, that’s us. He lets us pose however we want, and I lean on my trekking poles, look straight at the photographer as he ducks under his little black curtain to click the shutter on his old fashioned 4×5. Every cell in my body feels self aware and tingly with the force of the full attention of another human being. When was the last time I was looked at so completely? To be seen as I am, or as I wish I would be?

Since we’re already holding our trekking poles, packs on, shoes tied, standing on the trail even, it must be time to go. Is thru-hiking turning into a chore? An exercise in self punishment?

We walk through the gray day into the meadow, smooth gray domes populating the horizon, smooth, gray water running through the field. We come to the waterfalls before Glen Aulin, think of the Davids. J falls asleep on a rock, I lean on my pack.

The Grand Canyon of Yosemite is opening before us but we take a hard right turn to the north. “I hiked here with my dad once,” J mentions. “We camped at a meadow with this incredible giant rock. We sat up there on it, watched a big, beautiful owl fly below us.” The giant rock appears before us, size of a house. It’s drizzling again. We planned on going another five miles, but we set up the tarp behind the house-boulder. Home again.

image

image

image

image

image

Share

Day 66: rainy day

by Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Day 66
Miles: zero
Tuolumne Meadows

We posted a note for Bluesman on the Tuolumne Meadows campground message board, but no sign of him yet. We’re not entirely sure if he’s ahead of us or behind – we think he got caught up in Mammoth. It would be great to see him again before he gets off trail for ten days. Who knows if we will ever meet up?

At the campground, the groomed, lovely, and stylish climbers pack up and head back to Berkeley. Dan and Christina hang out a little longer. We had discussed going climbing, but we’re exhausted and Christina is ill. And it’s raining. It’s nice to have a day that’s not all business, that’s slow, that’s unrushed. We meant to take care of all sorts of business today, but a recent rockslide took out the cell towers and landlines so we’re off the hook. I buy a postcard for my mother at Tuolumne Meadows store and get in line for the Post Office, where a queue of dirty hikers are holding their postcards for their mothers. Don’t want to have Search and Rescue chasing you.

Dan and Christina don’t get to stay for the entire day, which is a disappointment. It’s so nice to see old friends.

I first met Dan and Christina a couple years ago, on a climbing trip to Joshua Tree. Dan was getting ready to launch a kickstarter campaign to produce a rechargeable headlamp (at the time, there weren’t really any on the market from the big name brands). He was able to get fully funded, get his headlamp produced, and launch his company, . J and I are using Bosavi headlamps for our thru-hike. Super lightweight, super bright, and no AA batteries for the trash.

Despite being a beautiful product, without a big name behind him, Dan has not been able to get his headlamps stocked at any of the big outdoor gear stores (REI, I’m looking at you). The company was doing ok, and then everything went up in flames.

Big, redwood timber, tarpitch roof flames. The warehouse with all the production equipment, designs, tools, and extra stock was burnt to the ground when one of the other tenants left a pile of oily rags sitting in a corner. One little spontaneous combustion, next thing you know, all your hard work is little lumps of char. The metal tools melted to the floor.

The bad news is that Bosavi will never produce another headlamp. The good news is that part of the inventory was stored off-site, and there are 400 of rev 2.0 Bosavi . I think they’re a great product – can’t think of a better endorsement than taking it on a thru-hike – so if you need a headlamp, check it out.

Once Dan and Christina take off, I take the book that we acquired yesterday, sit down at the picnic table, and don’t move for the rest of the day. It feels like the lap of luxury.

It’s almost dark when we hear someone walk up to the campsite and call our names. It’s Lapis! We’ve been crossing paths since Big Bear. She saw our note for Bluesman on the message board and came to find us. She joins us at the site for the night. I suppose tomorow we will have to finally do our resupply chores and walk out of here, but I’ve got one more night to rest.

Share

Day 65: the stone staircase

by Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Day 65
Miles: 22
From Ansel Adams wilderness to Tuolomne Meadows

Fell asleep hard last night, but I’m still tired. I’m tired all the time now. I sort of thought I’d be used to this? That my body would catch up? Instead, it seems like every time I get a little stronger that the trail gets a little harder. I hoped my new shoes would help, but after a one-day reprieve it was straight back to foot pain. Blast.

Our morning takes us up and past Thousand Island Lake. It’s beautiful, in classic High Sierra fashion: white mountains, pink flowers, green trees, blue lake. We crossed into the Ansel Adams wilderness area yesterday, and I’ve been thinking about his photos, and how he could hold the soul of this place on a black and white print, this place of blue green white.

We’ve got our last pass of note coming up, Donahue Pass, then onto Tuolomne Meadows. Onto a real day off! Maybe with just a real day off I won’t be so tired anymore. Maybe I won’t feel so thin.

Up and over Island Pass, which I didn’t realize was a pass, or that I was crossing it, until just now, where the sign marks it. I keep thinking we’re going to be out of the high country for good, but the smooth, glacier-polished land of marmots and green grass and knife-edged peaks reappears. The pass is a wild tumble of boulders and stone, with a trail blasted and built into an infernal stone staircase, with every step either too high or too short or too long or too shallow. “Right or left?” I ask J, pointing at the ridgeline. “Which I’ve do you think is the pass?”
  “Right.”
  “Really? I thought left.”

It is left. For someone used to looking at rocks, J has maintained an astonishing record of zero correct guesses on the passes.

Up at the top another hiker hails us: “Welcome to Yosemite!” We’ve made it to the park. J and I sit down next to a teeny melt lake for lunch.  There are two guys, David and David, eating there as well, and next thing you know we’re chatting about gear. I love talking gear. It drives J crazy. I can’t help it. If he’d ever been to a reunion with my dad’s family he’d know why. Talking gear is what I was born to do… Even if the gear in question is poop trowels and butt wipes. (Of course I carry butt wipes! A little heavier, sure, but you don’t need ’em until you do!)

A David pawns off his book on J. He wanted a new book, but maybe not a hardback. As we leave the same David tells us – “when you get to the waterfalls beyond Tuolomne, tell it hello for me. It’s where I was baptized by the universe!”

Down Donahue Pass turns out to be a different endeavor from up. Much longer, for one thing. Endless, to be more exact. Unending. Brutal. They must have built this trail in the thirties, because there surely has been no other time since when backbreaking physical labor has come so cheap, so abundant, as to even imagine what they have done here. Miles and miles of carefully built stone stairs, hand cut, hand blasted, hand laid. I don’t even appreciate it, this rocky stumbling ground of stairs that are, every one, the wrong size.

The downhill is endless, but somehow passes. It always does. We begin the second infinite section of the day, the flat, easy walk along the Lyell River to Tuolomne Meadows and friends and rest. It’s a storybook meadow, a green corridor between forested mountains, a wide, blue meander winding through. For nine miles. Easy, if the entire High Sierra hadn’t come first.

Tuolomne Meadows is a teeming tent city. Fourth of July weekend. I thought the JMT section of the trail felt crowded, this is a metropolis! We make our way, limping, the message board. J’s long-time friends Dan and Christina should be here to meet us, and hopefully they left a note.

“Hey!” Hollers a car behind us.
  “Dan!” J hollers back. We found them!

Dan and Christina live in Berkeley, and they’re here camping with a big crew of climbing friends. Everyone is fit, strong, stylish, clean. I feel like a schlub, a dirty, tired one. They welcome us and feed us all the same. I’m so glad I don’t have to walk anywhere tomorrow.

image

Thousands Island Lake

image

Coming down Donahue Pass

image

Whose idea was this??

image

The Lyell River

Share

Day 63: afternoon push

by Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Day 63
Miles: 26
To Red’s Meadow
Over silver pass

The big passes, as I like to think of them, are all over, but the little ones remain. (Only 10,000 feet? Not impressed.) So up and over Silver pass. It may not be a big pass, but I’m feeling tired nonetheless. Always tired.

Silver Lake, Lake Virginia, Purple Lake – all are a brilliant blue. Now we’re leaving the land of the lakes, into the trees, a quiet, dry forest walk.

If we do 26 miles tonight, we’ll make it to Red’s Meadow. Our maps say: free hot springs showers. I hike faster and think: free hot springs showers. Ice cream. A burger. Hike faster. The day is a blur of trees and hiking faster.

The landmarks on our map begin to have very volcanic sounding names: crater creek, red mountain. It all becomes clear when a giant cinder cone appears in view. It’s shocking to see rock that isn’t granite, isn’t white. Do rocks come in other colors?? I wonder what burblings of magma, what gyrations of stone, conspired to conjure up this black cone.

Coming down off a huge ridge, we look across a valley and see miles of downed trees. “Do these trees all look like they were blown over to you?” I ask J.
  “Blown over? They look like they were ripped straight out of the ground!”

Giant trees, roots ripped straight out. All the trees have fallen in the same direction. Are there tornadoes here?
A day of natural mysteries. I don’t care. I just want a shower. J and I stumble into Red’s Meadow dirty and exhausted.

The cafe is closed. The showers are not free, and they are closed. The store’s sign says it is closed too, but the proprietor is still there, and he sells us canned soup, ice cream bars, and soda. So there’s that.

The campground is another half-mile, so we limp to it. We had heard there was free camping, but we can’t find it, only pay sites. Another hiker finds us standing there, sad and confused, and takes us back to his site. It’s a group of JMT hikers. They’re only supposed to have six people per site, and we make it seven. “You guys are pretty unified, right?”
  “Totally unified.”

They are unpacking their food drops, and we inherit larabars and drink mix and snacks.

We were planning on going into Mammoth to resupply, but we packed too much food out of Bishop. Between what we still have, what we’ve just inherited, and what we can buy at the store, we’ll easily make it to Tuolomne Meadows. It would be fun to celebrate the Fourth of July in town, but we’re trying to meet J’s friends who will be in tuolomne for the weekend. So we’ll hike instead.

I sure wish I’d gotten to take a shower today…

image

Silver Lake

image

image

image

image

Lake Virginia

image

Purple Lake

image

(Phone is out of battery 🙁   )

Share

Day 62: rough start

by Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Day 62
Miles: 18
Over Selden Pass to the perfect campsite

Can’t break the streak of late-starts. We had camped close by our friends Purple and Carnivore, early risers, and we hoped that they’d have a good influence on us… but we wake up to full sun and no sign of them. They must have snuck out of camp hours ago.

With all that sleeping in, surely hiking should be going better? We’ve only made two miles and I’m crashing hard. Today is not my day – either that or the Sierras are gradually, inexorably taking me down.

I collapse by a small, pretty lake. “Oh man,” says J. “Look at that lake. Look at those trout!”
  “Catch me some?”

Pop, pop, pop! Three trout, all in a row. J spends another half hour catching the last one, I clean them and put them in with foraged green onions. Food of the gods! “You’re never going to enjoy another trout dinner again,” declares J. What could compare with this? Maybe I can hike today after all.

image

image

Selden Pass goes easy. There’s a nice shear zone through the granite, the rock breaking off in thin plates. A cheeky ground squirrel sits by us on top of the pass, sharing the view (but not our snacks, too bad for him.)

image

Down, then up. The reliable down the pass, up the pass pattern is over. It’s a steep ridge, but the uphills always come through for us. Instead of pines, pines, pines, we’re in aspens. The undergrowth is flush with lupins and lilies.

image

image

(I know, this is a columbine, not a lily.)

Going up inexorably leads to going down. A little vitamin I eases the descent. We cross the bridge over Mono Creek and it’s getting late. I don’t think twenty miles are in our future, but perhaps?

image

image

More uphill, but the walking is hard. Rocky hard. Hunger cramps. No more gas.

Then we see it – the perfect campsite. It’s across the creek, flowing downhill on a smooth granite chute, in a little grove of trees. “There it is,” I point out. Home. I roll a boulder into a narrow spot in the creek and we hop across. The tarp is an easy one tree pitch, then pasta sides and bed.

Share