This is another older post that I did on my other blog and basically cut and pasted it to share on this blog.
After a few days of camping in Yosemite valley, we headed off for our real adventure: Backpacking in the High Sierra back country!
We drove up to Tuolumne Meadows area and parked on the side of Tioaga Road. The drive up was beautiful! I was surprised to see there was still snow up there in September. There was an area with bear boxes for you to store additional supplies while you are backpacking, so we were able to throw our cooler in there. The rest of the equipment, like the base camp tent, was stored in our truck.
Zack and I started at the Cathedral Lakes trail head and were headed from Tuolumne Meadows to Yosemite Valley, 21 miles away via the John Muir Trail.
We started off with a big group of backpackers. It looks like I packed the lightest pack here. This is the one time I make sure to only pack what I need, and nothing more. We saw this couple on the trail a lot, as they were going the same place on the same route. His pack was 75 pounds and hers was 50-ouch! In contrast, mine was 30 and Zack's was 45. You would think that meant they had a lot more gear then us, but in reality we found out that they brought a lot of impractically heavy gear. To cook they brought a tea kettle and cast iron skillet. We brought a JetBoil cooking system instead. They brought heavy cotton clothing. We brought modern light synthetic fabrics instead. Every once counts!
Everyone gave me looks like-What is this little blonde doing on the trail? Then the joke is on them when I blow right by them and arrive at camp hours before them!
A nice guy took this photo for us. It turns out that he was the father of the actress Maggie Grace that played Shannon in Lost. You meet people with interesting stories on the trail!
I love seeing the pack trains bringing in supplies and packing out waste. That's how you know you are still on the right trail: Follow the horse poop!
This is the point were we got caught red handed for leaving from the wrong trail head. Our first pick was sold out, so we had to get a permit for another trail head. We didn't think we would actually get caught! But we lied through the teeth and said we thought we were on the right train head. This ranger was cool about it- thank god! I don't recommend doing this though, as they have limits on trail heads for a reason.
After a nice long hike we made it to our first stop, Cathedral Lakes! Possibly the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life.
After frolicking in the water for a while we sat down for a gourmet lunch- a granola bar. That's the great thing about backpacking- you walk all day + you only eat bars and dehydrated meals= guaranteed weight loss!
Then we noticed that the pretty white fluffy clouds were turning into gray rain clouds. That's no good because we still had miles and miles to go! We wanted to reach camp before sun down, so we pressed on while others tried to wait out the rain.
Long Meadow. This was such a beautiful hike, and not too demanding, as only a small portion of it was uphill. Most of this days hike was through the flat meadows.
Needing a break. There were some hills, and Yosemite hills don't mess around!
This is about the time when it started hailing- hail the size of quarters. It hurt so bad! Oh, and thunder too. Loud, scary thunder!
See those white blobs on the ground? Yep. Big, fat, painful hail. Parts of the JMT here are so worn down that the trail is cut about a foot below ground level. Staying on the trail minimizes damages to the trail, so its worth it to walk in a "trench".
After about two hours of walking in the rain and hail, we pulled out our fashionable emergency ponchos. His was blue, and mine was pink. I am happy to report that we gave up the emergency ponchos after this trip and invested in some Marmot Precip jackets.
After walking all day long, this was the home stretch.....
and one more set of stairs......
And we made it to camp!
We set up our Kelty two person tent and made dinner.
Here is Zack cooking dinner with the Jet Boil. Even though I was starving, my Mountain House Chicken Vindaloo wasn't cutting it and I had to dump it in the compost toilet. But shhhhh......don't tell anyone! You know it is bad when you are starving and you still can't stomach it. My advice: stick with the spaghetti.
This was the view from our camp site- Sunrise High Sierra Camp. We got the best site for sure! Totally worth the long, tiring hike. Sunrise has pit toilets and bear boxes too, so you won't have to carry a bear canister if you stay there.
It finally stopped raining, and we were blessed with a rainbow!
Not a bad way to end the day.
Then we turned in early and played 20 questions (great weightless game) in the tent. I kick butt at that game. My record is guessing in only 3 questions! The answer was booger.
In my next post I will tell you what we did on the 2nd day on our backpacking adventure- Sunrise High Sierra Camp to Little Yosemite Valley.
-Dollie the Backpacking Bettie
