Day 3: Clouds Rest Jct. -> Tuolumne Meadows
/17 Miles / Ascent +3,793 feet / Descent -2,419 feet
Somewhere before Sunrise High Sierra Camp, Yosemite.
Ok, just to review - here's looking back at our route over the last two days:
The red line on the south rim (left side) is pretty much our exact route - 23 miles in 2 days, here seen from west to east.
Two days, 23 miles, up 7.5 Empire State Buildings, down 4.5. Not bad for a bunch of newbies...
OK, Day 3 - Of Mules and Men.
Here we go:
Once again, I didn't sleep so great. Besides my body being wrecked, I was parched all night although I drank at least a liter of water. Despite being clear before bed, we had a bit of a rain shower in the middle of the night. As I was smiling to myself for staking out all the guy lines and keeping my pack in the vestibule I heard some swearing and thrashing close by. Over breakfast I learned that Gus' camp and kit were not quite buttoned up. When the rain woke him he realized his pack etc. was outside leaning against a log and had to do a hazy scramble to get his it all into his tent.
The burned out forrest just north of our campsite - it had a goblin-like quality to it.
Not a chance I'd subject my water filter to that murk.
Trying to look cheery in the goblin forest
We were soon treated to some great views to distract us from the desolation of the fire.
Heading E, NE, out of the blackened forest towards the easier of that day's two climbs.
Looking SE toward the western end of "the valley". I believe that is Lyell Peak on the left.
Heading up the start of the climb - this part was not steep...
"Pocahontas" coming over the climb.
Above is a picture of Lindsay (or should I say "Pocahontas "?) pulling up the rear of that steep climb.
Why "Pocahontas"? A digression on the practice of trail names:
As we all sprawled on our backs panting at the top of (what we would learn later) was not a relatively long climb, a gangly backpacker loped on through from the other direction. I love to talk to people on the trail. So did this fellow, so I hailed a "Hallo, hiker" and he introduced himself with his trail name, "Leggz" before telling us a quick synopsis of his journey doing the PCT as a section hiker.
When he left I explained what I knew about 'trail names'. They came about due to necessity. On long thru-hikes, it is common to cross paths with the same hikers on the trail. Instead of trying to remember everyone's real name, trail names were substituted.
Gorgeous meadow before Sunrise High Sierra Camp.
Rules: You could never give yourself a trail name. It had to be bestowed upon you. The reason being quite practical: if you had an interesting tic, trail habit or practice, last name, or physical attribute it was easier to remember you if associated with your trail name. So many "John"s on the trail but not a lot of "Frog Feet"s. It actually works. I can remember the trail names of people I met months later better than their real names.
Well, we were 2.5 days in out of 6 and it was time to throw around some trail names. The same ones appear in quotes in "The Crew" section.
Jason ignored the rules and tried to name himself something like "Sierra Steel" and was shot down. Someone originally dubbed him "Cropduster" (ask him yourself) but I re-named him "Mr. Wang" the next day - more on that later.
Gus revealed how I tricked him into carrying around a flyswatter for a few summers thinking it was a deadly sword, but "Flyswatter" is just a bad, bad name. Instead I went with his typical nickname, a play on the Swedish pronunciation of Gustaf: "Goose".
Jason named Katherine, I think, due to her spunky demeanor and fitness level. I usually would avoid couples naming each other but this one stuck: "Hop-a-long"
Lindsay had given up on brushing her hair, had braided it into a ponytail, had dark skin so was dubbed: "Pocahontas" - not PC, but nothing on this hike was...
Tyler's came easily: He lay panting post-climb after racing Jason up this last horrible 600ft hill. With his complete lack of backpacking experience Tyler consistently bulldozed up and down trails that should have broken others. The only answer to his amazing sustainability was an internal barometer of pain tolerance that's naturally set to high, aka "True Grit".
And me? Hah...On the Valley Tour Jason kept taking about how he'd love to climb El Capitan. I told him I wouldn't be joining him since I get vertigo and am afraid of heights. He kept pushing me and I kept protesting. Since I was the defacto trip leader they dubbed me "El Capitan". (And that's the Spanish pronunciation, por favor)
Echo Peak from right before Sunrise High Sierra Camp.
Treading across the meadow we came to Sunrise High Sierra Camp. This guest ranch offered private tent-cabin accommodations, shared outhouses and a communal mess hall that served three meals. Just looking at that day's menu board made our mouths collectively water. In fact a few of us were out of water and so we decided to make a quick detour to "water-up" and use their toilets if available.
The night's menu on this sign was one of the many reasons we were tempted to stay the night.
One of the guest tents.
I was directed to a spigot outside for potable water and while we were all filling up, we took some time to admire the pack animals hitched alongside us. Then folks started asking if we could grab lunch there and I told them it was just for the guests. I wasn't really sure, but I knew we would never make our miles that day if we sat down for lunch, as much as I wanted to myself. I couldn't keep anyone from going inside to ask about bathrooms/outhouses and they came out announcing that while there wasn't lunch for non-guests, they did sell snacks. Well, this was better than sitting down to lunch but I knew it wouldn't be quick.
Turns out this fellow was a real High Sierra cowboy and was catching lunch before leading a pack train back to civilization for more supplies.
The shelf on the left was their store where many in the group eagerly replaced their granola lunch with fruit and candy.
You would think our group hadn't seen a store for 2 weeks. It was hardly a day and a half, but our gang hit the camp's store (the modest counter and shelf pictured above) like a 7-11 before a zombie-apocalypse. I was sick of my food too, but I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the camp. And to drink some electrolytes. This part of the hike was known for being dry and hot in July and it lived up to it. Dehydration was one of my weak points as my body cycles through a lot of water and I wanted to stay ahead of it. I was feeling tired and dry, and I couldn't afford to.
Lindsay was loving the pack horses. Their driver was going to return that love later....
El burro #2-6. Doesn't look like much but he passes me later.
Tyler also had some quiet moments with the pack animals.
The camp is in a lovely location perched on a long and large ledge in the side of the hill with views over the massive meadow and peaks beyond. A truly sublime setting.
Checkers, High Sierra Camp-style
Sunrise HSC is a great place to kick back and relax. I would love to come back in the future. You can see the trail we came up between my boots.
Gus and Katherine coming out of Sunrise high sierra camp. Note the how dusty trail due to the heavy horse pack use.
The only thing this place didn't have were usable bathrooms for the ladies so they suffered a bit, but they also had their apples so were mostly smiles on the way out of SHSC.
Smiles didn't last long for any of us. The trail remained relatively flat for a good while but it was exposed and dry and we were all beat from the trying 15 miles and ascent of the day before. We still had Cathedral to go over but I didn't really tell anyone, mostly because I was reading the elevation profile incorrectly and it just didn't seem to be too bad to me. This was a mistake I got good at making. Not sure if it was conscious or not....
Our gang heading out of SHSC with contrails forming an "X" over our lunch stop in the distance.
Our man from the Sunrise HSC mess hall looks more composed when on a horse and not slurping down marmot stew.
It's 80F and he's wearing a wool vest and chaps. This guy is the real deal.
While I was trying not thinking about the coming climb, we got surprised from behind by the Sunrise Cowboy leading his pack train back to Tuolumne for a resupply. Not only was this guy good looking, he was dressed in a vest and leather chaps on a 75F day. While slopping his chow back at the Sunrise mess hall he resembled a truck driver, here he was looking cool as a cucumber striding up to us on his beautiful chestnut mare. This guy was the real deal. Here I was worrying about elevation profiles and this guy just glides by taking a whole pack train through inhospitable country like he was spreading butter on toast.
But he stopped spreading that butter right as he passed me and Lindsay as we approached a stream. The rest of gang was ahead and I slowed to photograph him and learned something about pack trains and streams: Never let them get to a stream before you. That's where pack animals drink (duh). And when they are tied to each other in a line each one has to stop and take a turn drinking at the stream. Depending on the size of the train, it can take 10 minutes. Well that gave Chaps 10 minutes to look back at his "train" but I had a feeling he was giving Pocahontas a little 'trail-eye'.
'Trail Eye', and watering the pack outside of SHSC.
I got anxious that our gang was so far ahead and worried. They weren't but they enjoyed the short break waiting for us. I plowed on ahead of Lindsay to try to bridge the visual gap with the rest of the group, nervous that they made a wrong turn or something.
Tyler before Cathedral Pass. Cathedral Peak makes is presence known ahead.
Nice old fella took our picture. Gus and I coming down from Cathedral Pass.
We didn't realize until later, after a wolf crossing the trail (Tyler, pulling on wilderness knowledge from his counselor days 30 yrs ago, says it was a coyote) and a dry rocky climb and similar descent that we had actually gone over Cathedral Pass. Thing was, we had been pushing hard since we all knew we 'wasted' a lot of time at Sunrise Camp.
As Upper Cathedral Lake came into view we made the call for lunch. It was at least 1:30 and we were ready. I steered us off the trail to a promising looking granite promontory. That's where Tyler hatched his High Sierra 'pizza': tortilla, peanut butter, mini sausages.
Tyler whips up some fresh High Sierra Pizza: Peanut butter & sausage on a tortilla, served on a pimply leg. Both look bad.
We all had an initial revulsion reaction that gave way to: "Hmmmm, well I have the same crap in my bear can and it'll be faster to eat it all together". I decided to make one too, mostly out of convenience. It was just easier to glob everything into the tortilla than to eat them separately, and it saved time. Wasn't bad. Wasn't great. Just "was".
My attempt to improve upon Tyler's High Sierra Pizza. I added cheese. It still sucked. My leg looks better then his, though.
This became my fall-back lunch when I had the energy and/or time to make it on the trail. It tasted pretty good the first 4-5 times, then I got sick of it (like everything else.) Tip: if the sausage casing is robust, take it off before slicing. It makes it less "chewy".
Our lunch rock jutting into Cathedral Lake...
...under photogenic Cathedral Peak.
Some of us catnapped by the lake. Tyler invited me to canoodle next to him but I declined.
Expedition pose. Get used to it.
Looking across Upper Cathedral Lake. Some boys were fishing on the far side.
Such a "man" man. I love this shot.
This was one of our "long" days, with @ 5 miles to go. While it was mostly downhill, we had just hiked 12 miles so we were all feeling the ill effects of the day's hot, dusty and rocky trail. Our plan was to get into the backpackers campground in Tuolumne Meadows, the terminus of our first permit. I had to pickup our continuing permit the next morning that would take us from TM to Whitney. The Tuolumne Village area had a large car camping section, our small backpackers along with a post office for resupplies (us), a general store and a cafe (that closed at 5 unfortunately).
I was concerned about getting skunked on tent sites at the backpackers so Jason and I raced down the very rocky trail descent. We were struck by how many day hikers we observed heading into the bush considering how late it was. At the bottom Jason decided to wait for Katherine so I took Tyler with me to plow ahead and look for the campsite. Those last two miles were probably the longest of the trip. Once again the backpackers was treated as an afterthought by the NPS and there was little info as to its exact location. I kept hoping it would 'be around the next bend'. When you're bone tired you don't really want to make mistakes and walk further than you have to. I could tell the rest of the group was shot and I felt particularly worried about dragging them further than necessary. I had asked a lot of them so far and I got the feeling that it was wearing on them. That's why I shot ahead with Tyler to do the extra scurrying around. There was no cell reception so we had no way to communicate when we came to a junction. I left a note attached to a rotted post and Tyler formed a directional arrow and his initials with sticks. We hoped the rest of the group would register these combined forms of "trail mail".
Skirting the road (not crossing it) trying to locate the campground before sunset. Car campers enjoying the sunset while I couldn't.
We found the car camping area which was spread out amongst a series of roads through a dense forest. It wasn't particularly easy to navigate, but the dirt road was a welcome change from the unforgiving rocky trail. We encountered some other bewildered campers that had Xeroxed hand-drawn maps given to them by a ranger. It looked like something I might have made (crappy) but it did show us the campsite location.
I took a mental snapshot (I should have taken a photo of it but I was too zonked to think straight) and after our last small hill of the day Tyler and I stumbled into a sea of tents. This was not bucolic North Pines bordered by a gentle flowing Merced. The view from this tent-town terrace was of the car campers spread out below us like a carpet. Still, I happily squeezed us into a spot that could accommodate all our tents.
Then the rest burst in like cannon-shot, led by Jason and Katherine who had registered our "trail mail". But that seemed to be the last bit of their available energy - you could see it on all of our faces as we pitched our tents - utter exhaustion.
This is the bonfire talk that we skipped. I did stop and listen for 5 minutes, but I really was too tired and just stared at the fire like a zombie and then left.
A cheery diminutive ranger with lots of red hair and a wide-brimmed hat came by to tell us about a talk at the outdoor bonfire amphitheater. We smiled and nodded as she went on about it. Jason's reaction when she moved on was pure NY, but it echoed how we all felt, "No f*cking way."
With tents were pitched we headed for the general store to see what we could scare up in place of the emergency dinner we had stashed in our bear cans. The selection was part 7-11, part Korean deli and it was all welcomed. Some displayed pure appetite id: whatever was desired and available, despite potential gastro-intestinal distress, was devoured. Tyler bought a box of Lucky Charms, a quart of milk, and set himself down on the picnic table and didn't speak for a while. Actually none of us spoke. Just ate. I took a tub of cream cheese and slathered chunks of it on three pre-packaged sandwiches (egg salad, chicken salad, tuna salad - I had a dairy hankering, I guess). There was some hummus. Something else. I can't remember. I'll tell you what wasn't there: trail mix and High Sierra Pizza.
Back at the campsite it was even more crowded and we were treated to the sounds of an impromptu party that seemed to be populated solely by PCT'ers. Not the fast and light types, but the hippie/steam-punk, Burning Man types that look like a cross between Hair & Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes they had ukuleles and didgeridoos and were loud and drunk and played bad music but I didn't hear a drop of it through my thick veil of exhaustion.
Which was good because the next morning turned out to be a clusterf*ck.
Sierra Mapper's topo of our day's route.
Sierra Mapper's elevation profile of our day's trek.
