Day 0 - Sober Reminder

Friday, July 16, 2010
Finally, the Sierra High Route is about to become a reality. Sally and I were camped at Wawona last night after swimming in the pool in The Valley to clean up from our overnight hike into Clouds rest. We drove the 28 miles to Wawona only to find a "Camping Full" sign on the campground. We figured, what the heck, let's ask. The nice ranger lady in the kiosk said, "Why, yes, we happen to have two open sites.". So with excellent luck we were taken care of for the night.
So today we are headed for Fresno to pick up Gary, Andy, Sandy and Lynne at the airport, then onto Kings Canyon for our permit, last food and gear sort, a night's sleep and then off.
We met Craig and Barb in the cell phone waiting lot, chatted while waiting for the plane to land, all of us in Craig's truck as he has air conditioning. Gary texted us that they were ready, so we pulled up, shook hands and hugged all around, then the guys loaded into my van and the girls took the air conditioned truck and we headed out. A quick stop at Vons for lunch, dinner and last minute supplies and we began pulling the hills up to Kings Canyon wilderness office to secure our permits. The girls stopped us at the Grant Sequoia tree grove so we could gawk at these superlative trees, then back on the road to the end of the road.
To get to Kings Canyon you must drop about 3000+ ft and follow the winding road that hangs on the edge of a cliff. As we dropped the 3000 ft we could see into the canyon. It was black. Dark storm clouds filled the canyon creating an ethereal sense of doom. The darkness was punctuated by flashes of lightning arcing through the gloom. As we began to wind our way along the cliff faces to enter the canyon the wind howled around our vehicles whipping the Yucca and other vegetation. 3/8 inch hail pelted the car and rain deluged in torrents.
We sat in our car, dumbstruck. This is summer, in the Sierra. It is supposed to be nice. This was dante's inferno and we were driving right into the middle of it. The storm was a sobering reminder of how seriously the weather can change and although we were taking the trip lightheartedly, we must also be prepared for whatever happens.
We arrived at the wilderness office at 3:07. I had thought they closed at 5. Bummer. I had really wanted to get our permits Friday night so we could start at sunrise Saturday, because our first day was up 6,000' in 7.5 miles. Not so. We would have to suffer up the long steep grade in the hot sun rather than getting the first few hours in before the hot sun wheeled around to the south and baked us.
Bear cans! In Yosemite they are omnipresent. Rentals are easy to come by and quick. In Kings Canyon we tried to rent them at the Lodge. The Smiths needed two for two weeks and one for four weeks. The people in the lodge had only two, had never rented them for longer than a day or two and wanted $3 per day per can. It was to cost about $190 bucks. We tried the NPS Visitors center. They were able to scrounge up three, at a cost of $5 for two weeks each, but they could not find the rental forms, so we had to wait half an hour while three ladies searched. Ironically, the "Visitors Center" is a room about 10' by 8'. Not a very big place to misplace a folder of forms. But, to the credit of the ladies, they did work hard to accommodate us and were successful.
With bear cans in hand we found a self serve campsite, organized gear and food, compared new gear purchases, ate a lot and finally got to sleep for tomorrow's long anticipated beginning of the adventure.