Day 25 - Leaving Tuolumne

Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - Day 24
Stats for the day: started at Tuolumne Meadows (8,660') at 8:30 - ended at Sierra Mine (10,742') 17 1:30pm. Total ascent 2224'. Total descent 547'. Total Distance 8.66 miles. 3 hrs 35 mins walking.

A morning at Tuolumne Meadows means The Grill for breakfast and therefore sleeping in. We pushed back our get up time to seven instead of six because the grill doesn't open until eight.

We dropped out packs on the thru-hikers table at 7:45 and stood in front of the closed sign on the grill door, first in line. As eight approached the crowd gathered and by the time the hand slithered from between shade and screen of the door to flip the closed sign over to the open side there were 25 people lined up.

With breakfast of eggs, hash browns, ham and biscuit in hand we walked by the hungry people in the cue and found a sunny rock near our packs to enjoy our meal.

With breakfast finished we headed out of the bustle of Tuolumne for the backcountry. Our path did not exactly take us to wilderness straight away; we walked the first three miles on a trail that paralleled the Tioga Pass highway and then crossed it before we got away from the car noise. When we reached the meadows of Gaylor Lakes it felt line we were back on route

except for all the people who hike into these lakes that are only two miles from Tioga Pass.

We had to play the "Land Administrative Shuffle" for camping tonight. Yosemite National Park does not allow camping north of the Tioga Pass Highway so we had to get out of the park, but just across the border is the Monroe Natural Area that does not allow overnight camping either. But bordering both in a triangle lies some private mining holdings from earlier in the century in the Inyo National Forest. I found if we tucked ourselves in here we met all requirements to camp legally. As it turned out there was a nice pond, a running stream of water and lovely meadows; a nice place to stay at about 10,800'.

The wind was strong and cold all afternoon. So after dinner we retired to our bags to warm up and in my case record the day's activities.

Day 24 - Coming of Age

Monday, August 9, 2010 - Day 24
Stats for the day: started at Reymann Lake (10,062') at 7:45 - ended at Tuolumne Meadows (8,660') at 10:30am. Total ascent 642'. Total descent 2013'. Total Distance 5.08 miles. 2 hrs 12 mins walking.

With visions of the Tuolumne Grill in our heads all night we awoke to 30 degree temperatures and thick layers of frost on the tent and equipment. We cooked breakfast as we waited for the sun to appear over the ridge. When it finally hit us we were able to dry the tent and finish packing, then climbed the 600' ridge to exit the lake and descended through a neat chute in the bluffs into the Elizabeth Lake basin. We found the trail and quickly followed it the 2.3 miles to Tuolumne Meadows store and grill.

Today was my coming of age! For years I have watched the thru hikers (PCT and JMT) congregate on the two picnic tables in front of the Tuolumne Store, sorting gear, resupplying their bear cans and swapping stories. Today, Andy, Gary and I deposited our packs on those very same tables, proud thru hikers in our own rights (SHR) and sorted our gear, resupplied our bear cans and swapped stories with other hikers. A day to be long remembered. ;-)

We also got to the grill at 10:30 and had ham and eggs, hash browns, biscuits and buckwheat pancakes for breakfast (second breakfast), then when they switched to the lunch menu at 11:30 we entered again for hamburgers and fries. In the late afternoon I was driving the van to our exit point while my sister Karen followed in her van which we left there so I missed dinner, but Gary and Andy had vegetarian chili and a salad.

With gear sorted and repacked Gary, Andy and I are camped at the backpackers campsites while Karen and Matt are in my van spending the night just outside the park. They will hike into Gaylord Lakes from Tioga Pass, saving about 8 miles of trail walking that Andy, Gary and I will do on this their first day out. We will meet them tomorrow about 1 PM at the uppermost Gaylor Lake, then continue out of the park to camp for the night near the Sierra Mine site. We have to wedge ourselves outside the park because they don't allow camping in the area, yet outside the Monroe Natural preserve which borders the park. So we are tucking ourselves into a nice little corner outside both but in the Inyo National Forest high on a ridge where camping is allowed.

Day 23 - Weather

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Stats for the day: started at Bernice Lake (10,220') at 8:30 - ended at Reymann Lake (10,062') at 1:00. Total ascent 1898'. Total Descent 2067'. Total Distance 6.61 miles. 3 hrs 13 mins walking.

The weather has taken center stage again these last two days. Previous to that it was so consistently sunny everyday for a week and a half we really gave it little thought. But, it is six in the afternoon, I am sitting under the tarp at Reymann Lake, it is 43 degrees and the inch of hail that fell between 2:45 and 3:45 has not all melted away yet. It is cold.
We were aware of the high possibility of thunderstorms today, not from any weather service, but from the amount of dew that coated every surface this morning. It signaled a lot of moisture in the air. By 9:30 we were seeing small cloudlets beginning to form in the cloudless blue skies. Both the dew and the formation of the clouds in mid morning says "Thunderstorm"! But, experience told us we had until mid-afternoon before the skies would open upon us.
So we took our time this morning drying the dew out of everything, leaving camp an hour later than normal, at 8:30. Instead of retracing the trail back out of Bernice Lake we climbed cross country up into Gallison Basin to view this magnificent meadow. We then joined the Vogelsang Pass trail and we were soon at the High Sierra Camp. It was deserted. I walked into the dining room and found the remnants of breakfast still on the tables, but no one present. Back outside, one of the college age kids working at the camp came by and we found from him that someone had broken their leg that morning just across Fletcher Creek from the camp, not more than one hundred yards away. They were expecting a helicopter at any minute to land and whisk him away to the hospital in Mammoth. No sooner had he finished the account than we heard the beat of an approaching helicopter. The pilot circled once, hovered a minute to check the winds, then set down across the creek, tucking the bird in between boulders and trees. We waited for him to lift off with his subject, but after 20 minutes we lost patience and returned to the dining hall, hoping to buy candy bars and socks even though the sign on the door said closed. The nice kid discussed the SHR with us and talked about the joy of working at Vogelsang, then consented to sell us our goods. We finally left Vogelsang about 11 and headed down the trail to Tuolumne Pass, where we would leave the trail to head cross-country for Reymann Lake. At the trail junction we met a scout troop of about a dozen kids and five adult leaders. We struck up a conversation, thanked them for bringing the kids to the mountains and donating their time. We told them we were all Eagle Scouts and about Camp Sheppard. They were very interested in a climb of Rainier for their older kids and took my name, email and phone number. We shook hands all around and headed up to the pass that leads to Reymann Lake. It was now noon and the clouds were building, but certainly not threatening yet.

We met a young man in his late twenties at the pass scoping out climbing routes on the cliffs above Nelson Lake. We chatted a few minutes, then parted. We dropped into Reymann Lake about 1:00 and enjoyed lunch in bright, warm sunshine, after which we discussed putting up the tarp, but decided the thunder would announce the expected rain and we would wait for that call. Andy and Gary promptly sprawled in the meadows and were lulled into a deep sleep by the warm sun. I plugged my iPhone into Gary's solar panel and began writing emails as it charged, intending them to be sent the next time I got cell service.
The first indication I had that something was amiss was my iPhone dropping in charge rather than gaining. Next, I heard the first patters of raindrops. I woke Gary and Andy and we quickly erected the tarp as the rain started to intensify. Where was our thunderous warning? By the time we had it secure it was pouring rain mixed with hail. It was 2:45. Snug under our shelter we cooked up some hot tea and enjoyed Mother Nature's fury as thunder crashed and hail up to half an inch in diameter hammered against the tarp and collected in ever deepening piles on the meadow. An hour later the storm subsided, but the temperature was decidedly colder. Clouds still threatened more hail and rain, but we took advantage of the lull by photographing the summer flowers surrounded by hail and snow. The fish were not biting and by 4:30 we retired to the tarp to cook dinner. Again we noticed how cold it felt, so I set my altimeter watch out to get a reading. It promptly dropped to 43 degrees.
We went for a short walk to the outlet of the lake to warm up a bit, then put up the tent, intending to warm ourselves in our bags, which Gary and Andy did. I wrapped my sleeping bag around we while seated on a bear can under the tarp and wrote this entry.
So, the Sierra's are ordinarily a warm, weather friendly place to hike and camp. But, just as we were reminded the day we drove into King's Canyon how bad the weather can get, today also bumped us back to reality.

Day 22 - Sunrise

Saturday, August 7, 2010 - Day 22
Stats for the day: started at Tarn Below Forester Peak (10,900') at 7:15 - ended at Bernice Lake (10,220') at 3:15. Total ascent 2882'. Total descent 3694'. Total Distance 13.0 miles. 5 hrs 40 mins walking.

We purposely stayed way above tree line last night for multiple reasons, including, stay away from the mosquitoes, stay away from people, stay out of the trees to see the stars, see the sunset on the horizon (we have not had a high west facing camp the entire trip), and enjoy a spectacular view into the Merced River drainage and the Clark Range 5 miles distant. We were rewarded with all goals met.

We slept out on the granite slabs without the tent, a light cold breeze blowing off and on during the night. Tucked in our sleeping bags we were warm and toasty as the sun sped toward the horizon.

The sunset was magnificent as we watched the glowing orb slowly dip below the distant hills. The stars and planets were brilliant with Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, the Summer Triangle, Arcturas, and the Milky Way. But, the sunrise was the most spectacular.

I woke about 5:40am. It was cloudless. The sun was still below the horizon and the peaks of the Clark Range to the west had yet to be touched. The sky was putting on a show, demonstrating a perfect gradient fill. Directly over my head the sky was purple. Descending toward the western horizon the sky slowly changed colors, progressing through the colors of the rainbow until some distance above the top of the peaks of the Clark Range red was reached. Below the red the sky was grey all the way down to the peaks and into the passes between them. As I sat in my bag anticipating the first rays of the sun rising behind me to touch the range I noticed the color bands moving downward slowly, approaching the tops of the peaks, and the grey area beneath it getting narrower. I realized the sun was illuminating the atmosphere, and as the earth rotated toward it the bands of color were descending onto the mountains just as the sun light would descend down the mountains once it struck them.

The whole rainbow of colors descended the sky and when the red at the bottom touched the top of the peaks they began to glow with the direct rays of the sun. Slowly, this illumination then began it's descent down the mountain faces as the whole Clark Range began to glow with the morning sun.

Of course, we were not yet blessed with these warming rays, camped as we were in the shadow of Forester Peak. So, as the Clark Range enjoyed the sun's early warmth we shivered in the shadows through breakfast and packing, anticipating the moment when the sun would be high enough to clear the ridges behind us and shed it's warming rays on us. This happened in the minutes before our departure from our lofty camp and the combination of our physical exertion in walking and the sun's light began to warm us as we descended.

2.55 miles of glorious meadow traversing on a WNW heading brought us to the trail. Enroute we spooked a cinnamon colored bear that bounded across the meadow before us. We tromped on trail the rest of the day, covering a total of thirteen miles as we traversed the high trail above Washburn and Merced Lakes, then turned up Lewis Creek and arrived at Bernice Lake about 3:15, as thunderheads built above us. We quickly put up the tarp and tent, then before the rains hit Gary and I took a much needed bath with lake water and washed some clothes. No sooner did we complete our washings than the rain started to fall, so we gathered under the tarp to cook dinner. The rain never amounted to much, but the constant rumblings coming from the sky made us think a deluge was due any moment. By 7:30 most of the rumbling and all of the rain had ceased. I caught a couple fish for breakfast and was in the sack a little after 8.

Day 21 - One More hurdle

Friday, August 6, 2010
Stats for the day: started at Twin Island Lakes (9,662') at 7:30 - ended at Tarn below Blue Lake Pass (10,897') at 3:00. Total ascent 2757'. Total Descent 1857'. Total Distance 6.58 miles. 4 hrs 9 mins walking.

Another day in Paradise!! Started the day with a scramble along the cliffs on the shore of Twin Island Lake to it's outlet. I have been thinking about this outlet since the trip started as one of the crux points of the route. The outlet must be waded and is reportedly knee to waist deep. No big deal. The clincher? About 15 feet downstream from the crossing the stream tumbles down a labyrinth of rocks in a cascade. From the descriptions it sounded like a

couple of missteps and you would find yourself hurtling down the outlet to your death.

When we arrived at outlet the sun was just peeking over the mountains. What the descriptions did not tell was the part you ford was still part of the lake so the water is hardly moving, in other words, very little current.

We dropped our packs, stripped to our underwear, donned our Crocs and forded the stream without incident. It was slightly more than knee deep.

Now the route finding began again as we contoured around the end of the ridge, then began a gradual traversing ascent to a basin 350' above us. Along the route we were hailed by Marty, a lone SHR traveler we had met two weeks ago at Cirque Pass. We have been playing leap frog with him. We passed him during our Bishop resupply and the lightening storm at Muir Pass. He passed us at our layover day at Bear Lake. We passed him at Mono Creek when he went out for a resupply and today he passed us, hoping to reach Tuolumne before noon on Saturday before the post office closes so he can pick up his resupply. We won't be into Tuolumne until Monday morning when we meet Karen and Matt. We bid Marty safe traveling and let him get ahead of us far enough that we felt we had the route to ourselves again.

We traversed out of the bowl angling upward slightly, crossed a rock rib and then descended 400' into Bench Canyon, an utterly delightful U-shaped valley with meadows, trees, flowers everywhere and a meandering, singing stream at the bottom. We joyfully walked it's shores up canyon, taking pictures and enjoying the beauty.

We stopped for lunch at the upper end of the canyon, and put map and compass to work in locating Blue Lake and Blue Lake Pass, our two objectives on this portion of the route. We had been anticipating our having to turn west and scaling a slope, but we found the valley had already bent west and we needed to stay our course straight up the valley to reach both. The lake lay a mile off and 560' above us, the pass another half mile plus and 700' above the lake.

Upon reaching the lake we searched the headwall leading up to the pass and found an awesome series of ledges to follow in our climb to the pass. We gained the bottom of these ledges and had to do a bit of Class 4 climbing to get on them. Once on them they afforded delightful climbing.

Once at the pass we sat for half an hour enjoying the view, both west and east. Tried to get cell service to call home, but none available.

We descended the headwall across shattered stone and slabs, eventually reaching the tarn at it's base. Gary suggested we camp here rather than down at the Lyell Fork in the trees, mosquitoes and people and Andy and I readily agreed it was a grand idea. So we perched ourselves on the horizontal, smooth rock slabs for the night with a magnificent view down the Merced drainage with the Clark Range behind, watched the sun set and smiled ourselves to sleep. Only nine days left. May they pass slowly.

Day 19 - Route Finding

Wednesday, Aug 4, 2010
Stats for the day: started at Iceberg Lake (9,780') at 7:45 - ended at Twin Island Lake (9,658') at 5:30 Total ascent 3488'. Total Descent 3800'. Total Distance 9.61 miles. 5 hrs 0 mins walking.

One of the things trail hiking excludes is route finding. Following a trail is akin to one of those toy trains whose single front wheel has a deep grove in it that is placed over a long flexible rubber tube and when the train is turned on it mindlessly follows the tube.

When traveling off trail one immediately becomes more mindful of their surroundings because they must pay attention to the physical landmarks and the compass to find their way. So far we have covered 84 miles of trail and 78 miles cross country. We all agree the cross country, although far more physically demanding, is our favorite.

Today, we woke to find Iceberg Lake had completely frozen over during the night. We ate breakfast (I have had Cream o' Wheat everyday for the first 17 mornings because it is so compact, but now with food drops only 7 days apart I have switched to bulkier granola), packed our gear, and followed the trail one mile down to Ediza Lake. From here the rest of the eight miles of the day are cross country. We headed toward Nydiver Lakes, about 600' above Ediza and a mile NW. Halfway up, a band of cliffs blocked our route so we veered left until we found a heather and willow choked gully that gave us access to the top of the cliffs. From here Nydiver lay a quarter mile off and 30 feet below us. Whitebark Pine Pass rose on the opposite side of the lake another 400 feet higher. A short stop for water at the lake and we quickly ascended the pass. From here we had a fantastic view down into Garnet Lake, a long lake with many islands. A steep snowfield lay before us, so Gary and I donned crampons and wielded ice axes for the descent. Andy had left his ice axe with Craig back at South Lake, so he clambered up over the rocks to descend via the talus slope.

Once past the snow we traversed the broad upper basin above Garnet to the unnamed pass between Garnet Lake and Thousand Island Lake. A strong wind and no mosquitoes enticed us to stay for lunch, even though it was only 11:15. As we munched, a party of 4 came up from Thousand Island Lake, swatting mosquitos as they came. We chatted for a few minutes, then packed up and headed down into Thousand Island Lake basin.

A long traverse across the basin brought us to the use trail up to Glacier Pass, the entrance to Catherine Lake. We passed a group of ten kids and an adult leader working their way up the fairly gentle slopes to the pass. From the pass we dropped into Catherine Lake, a beautiful azure blue lake at the foot of the snowfield that lays between Banner and Ritter.

To this point route finding was not much. All the terrain in front of us was open meadow and easy to navigate. But, as we began to descend from Catherine on the west side of the Ritter Range the ground fell away so sharply we could not see the route ahead. At first we danced over smoothly polished granite, delighting in the cascades and waterfalls the waters from Catherine formed. At a point those waterfalls fell over cliffs we could not descend and we had to start working our way to the right to avoid them. At one point a band of 300 foot high cliffs barred our descent and we had to move way NW to find a stream valley that cut a swath through the cliffs that was passable.

Where this stream met with Catherine's outpouring the route tumbled near vertically to the valley 500' below. We were able to work our way down the right hand side a hundred feet, then traverse on ledges and sloping ground to a more moderately sloping hillside that we followed toward our destination, Twin Island Lakes. A half hour ascent through cliffs and meadows and we were at last looking down on the lake. Most of the lake was already in shadow by the time we traversed the glacier polished granite bedrock to the inlet, our camp for the night.

After dinner, as we lay in our bags in the tent we all agreed it was a marvelous day of incredible terrain and route finding, the 19th in a row.

Day 18 - The Minarets

Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Stats for the day: started at Reds Meadow (7750') at 7:30 - ended at Ice Berg Lake (9,834') at 5:45 Total ascent 4406'. Total Descent 2720'. Total Distance 13.0 miles. 6 hrs 39 mins walking.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. True, if we line in the world of planar geometry. If we existed in a curved universe then the shortest distance is the great circle. So what universe does the Sierra exist in? We do a lot of cross country travel and spend a fair amount of time calculating the distance between our location and destination on the map, yet when we travel that distance the two numbers never coincide. Conclusion? We are in an alternate universe.

Lots of evidence exists to support this conclusion besides the discrepancy between distances. Up here there are no strip malls, no 8am garbage trucks, no freeways, quickie marts, billboards, road rage, Rush Limbaugh, or TV ads. Just meadows, rushing streams, rock fields, talus, glacial cirque headwalls, mosquitoes and snowfields. A different geometry.

Today my planning did not match our map. Where I had us hiking up the trail to Minaret Lake, our map showed us hiking up toward the Minarets one valley south then cross country across Nancy Pass into another cirque and then reaching Minaret Lake. We chose the more circuitous route adding much to the distance for the day.

8 miles of trail hiking brought us to Superior Lake. Above it, the low spot in the ridge, stood Nancy Pass. Although 11:30, we decided to have lunch on top where we could survey the route.

The rock in the Minarets is not the granite we had been traipsing across the previous two weeks, rather it is metamorphic in origin, therefore more crumbly and broken. The route up Nancy Pass was steep scree, dirt and rocks in-between rock ribs. An hour of kicking steps in scree, carefully avoiding sending rocks down on each other and climbing on rock ribs we reached the pass. The view northward showed Minaret Lake a mile or two away, nestled on it's perch of rock below the towering rock peaks of the Minarets.

Following lunch we descended 600' into the intervening valley, traversed it's floor and then ascended on rock slabs and ribs to Minaret Lake.

What a unbelievably gorgeous place! Nestled right against the towering Minaret spires, snow, rock, lake, meadows and trees create a picture perfect scene.

But our destination lay beyond, so we gawked our way past the lake, climbed the steep use trail to Cecilie Lake and then dropped 450' into Iceberg Lake for the night. We had to push ahead because we wanted to travel the snow slopes that drop straight into Iceberg Lake in the evening while soft from the days heating rather than traverse them in the morning when they are frozen rock hard.

At 13 miles (4 cross-country) and 4,400 feet of elevation gain it was a much more strenuous day than we had anticipated. But, we are on schedule and ready for tomorrow's route to Twin Island Lakes.