Wild Country Found

Sunrise Campground to Yosemite Valley/The End

This is it. I think as I tear down camp this morning. We’re trying to get up and out early, the packing made all the easier by the fact that we’re both almost out of food, and by this point on the trail everything has it’s own home inside my backpack.

Today we’ll climb a mere 1,200 feet up to a small pass before we drop 6,000 feet down into the heart of Yosemite Valley. For the first time in nearly three weeks I think about Keith’s car parked and left unattended in an overflow lot. Boy, I really hope it’s still there.

For the first half of the day we’re the only two hikers on the trail. Switchbacking down, steeply, unrelentingly, through the trees still chilly in the early morning before the sun has warmed their branches. Just before Half Dome we hike through a burn from two years before which has transformed this once lush tree-filled valley into an other worldly grey moon scape, the land dotted with the blackened skeletons of roasted trees, as the sun sears down from on high.

Rounding the corner at the base of Half Dome and there they are! The tourists whom I’d known we’d encounter at some point today. We cruise on past the turn off to Yosemite’s most iconic rock formation, our only direction today is down. Each time we stop to let uphill traffic pass us they ask how the summit of Half Dome was. At first we answer truthfully: didn’t climb it, hiking the JMT, 18 days, yeah long, views are probably a little smokey, it’s a good challenge, yep climbed it previously. This conversation is unsatisfying for the question asker, and belabored for us and after a time we revert to the tried and true method of lying. We tell each passing tourist who asks “how was it?” with “amazing, but a little smokey” at which point they smile and move on and we are freed from the longer conversation that comes with being totally honest. Plus, we’re not being totally dishonest, the views from the top of Half Dome are amazing, and it doesn’t take a genius to presume that the smoke that has filled the entire valley will be present up there too.

The air warms around us as we pass into lower climes. Nobody passes us going downhill, we have strong hiker legs now and the complete disregard for personal comfort that comes with thru hiking.  Waves and waves of tourists pass us on the uphill though, and it doesn’t take long to notice the conspicuous lack of American accents. It feels like all of western Europe decided to vacation in Yosemite this year.

Down. Forever hiking down hill, when we turn onto the Mist Trail and we’re so close but the traffic jam of day hikers is worse here than ever. I turn off the part of my brain that is keeping time and just allow myself to make forward progress when I can, allowing others to pass where I must. A Russian man presses into the back of me as I wait for a scared woman to descend the slippery steps. Mist swirls around us, water thundering as it flies into space and disappears.  “Come on, come on, come on” I hear him mutter impatiently, as though we’d all decided to hold him up intentionally. Finally he skips around us on a sketchy side trail and is out of sight until we pass him 10 minutes later deeply engrossed in the task of taking a selfie with Vernal Falls.

And then, as suddenly as falling asleep we’re down onto pavement. Bodies, cars, screaming children swirl around, all oblivious to our personal victory.

Should I be feeling something more than this? I think to myself as we make our way back to the car. Am I supposed to cry, be overwhelmed with the magnitude of our accomplishment? But then again, it’s only backpacking, and while I feel proud, happy, grateful, anything beyond that is a dishonest emotional balm, applied in hindsight to give gravity to a situation, writing the story in reverse. I text my family, my friends, “we’ve done it!” Then I turn to look at the thousands of people around me, each on their own paths, as oblivious to our accomplishment as we are to theirs.

Back at the car we let the AC rush over us, the glass blocking out the sounds of the valley, so pressing and foreign after weeks in the mountains (Keith’s car wasn’t stolen, how polite) Then, giddy with delight of forward movement without physical exertion we drive to the showers. Inside I scrub myself twice over until the water stops running brown and I’m transformed from a thru hiker into just another Yosemite tourist.

I sit in the dappled shade of a bench while I wait for Keith and stare at the obese squirrel chattering at my feet, eager for food I will not give it.

Our time on the trail was wonderful, but it wasn’t magically transformative in the way you hear written about in books that are made into movies staring Reese Witherspoon. Our time on the JMT was bigger though, emotionally and physically immense in a way that pushes away everything else outside of the dirt path that is your home. However temporary that home may be.

Keith emerges squeaky clean and pink and we walk to get ice cream. Tomorrow we’ll start the drive home, merging back into our regular lives, our real lives, at least for now.

Random Flat Spot Near Tuolumne Meadows to Sunrise Campground

Over breakfast the conversation turns to mileage and days and time. We’re already ahead of schedule but with the abundant smoke from nearby wild fires filling the valley we make the call to condense the last three days of hiking into two.

The morning starts with a relaxing stroll towards the Tuolumne Valley store where there will be fresh food and picnic tables to eat on instead of just sitting in the dirt like we’ve grown so accustomed to. We pass dozens of hikers this morning. Clean, sweet smelling day hikers waft by us. SoBo JMT hikers, excited, just a few days into their trip bounce by, trekking poles merrily stabbing the ground, packs loaded with days of food. The skies above curdle and threaten rain. Clear and the sun makes a valiant attempt to shine through. Round and around this goes.

Suddenly we’re walking through a massive campground, children shrieking as they streak past us. Bleary eyed tourists with their coffee mugs in hand stare unabashedly as we walk past. Quick quick quick. There is food ahead of us, and these hoards of tourists are less interesting to us by far.

We lunch at Tuolumne Meadows cafe and while Keith gets us ice cream I watch a Japanese tourist encourage her little girl to throw bread to a bird near the garbage cans. At this point, I’m so bored by the blatant disregard for our wild spaces, the flippant air taken by frontcountry and backcountry travelers alike that I barely find this annoying any more. Plus it’s not like I speak Japanese, so I stay silent and soon the woman and her daughter climb into their shiny rental car and disappear from my life forever. The bird they were feeding gives me a dully inquisitive look and when I do not feed it, hops away to beg from someone more lenient than I.

When at last there is nothing else to eat or entertain us at Tuolumne we get back on the trail. The relaxed hiking of Yosemite is like a balm on my tired body and I ride my legs as they carry me forward toward the end. I find I cannot feel terribly sad about the terminus of our thru hike approaching, as this whole trip has felt closer to the beginning of something, rather than the end.

In the afternoon we climb towards Cathedral lake, passing fellow JMT NoBo’s along the way, 10 or so in all. Passing fellow thru hikers stokes my ego every time, a little balloon swelling inside my chest. Along this climb we pass a man hiking in one crock and one hiking boot, a woman in socks and flip flops mincing up the trail on ruined feet. Something between pity, admiration, and passive nothingness at the struggling of these aimless strangers. Grateful, under it all, for my able body, intact toenails, unblistered feet, calloused by years of climbing hiking running and everything else.

We’re in camp by 5:30pm set up amongst the torn down canvas cabins of a high sierra camp which never had the chance to open this year, due to the snow. Our neighbors are a group of four brightly enthusiastic women who are section hiking the JMT from Yosemite Valley to Red’s Meadow, drinking and fraternizing the whole way there. They flirt openly with a group of young guys who invite them over to their fire for the evening. I’m half envious of their breezy sociability – a skill I fear I’ve never mastered – and half grateful when the campground falls silent aside from their ringing tinkering laughter that sidles into my ears, the too loud noises of inebriation.

Tomorrow this whole trip will come to a resounding end. It’s hard to parse out my emotions, but my body deeply wants to rest.

In the gloaming light over our little pots of food (potato soup, I think) I turn to Keith and ask “what if we just kept walking and didn’t stop?” To which he replies “we could.”

Thousand Islands Lake to Random Camp Near Tuolomne Meadows

I wake feeling like absolute garbage, the sun pouring into the tent. The morning has come too early and I dread pulling myself from my warm cocoon of down and crinkly sleeping pad. But wait, no, not the sun. The brightest moon I’ve ever seen, filling the valley with it’s piercing blue light. I snatch up my phone; oh sweet baby cheeses it’s 2:30am! I pull my hat down over my eyes and crinkle into my quilt. I sleep the sleep of those who know they don’t have to get up for a few more precious hours.

When I wake again it’s actually morning and it’s already 7:45. Oops. Keith appears to have been awake for some time and has been kind enough to while away the morning hours on his phone while I snoozed on. With the knowledge that we have a relatively easy day on the trail we spend the morning attempting to dress up our breakfast eggs.

My introduction to Mountain House Breakfast Hash was on my first ever solo backpacking trip and it was soooo good that it immediately claimed a spot on my top three backpacking breakfasts list. Now, 2 years later, and 6 days of this stuff on the JMT and Keith and I can barely look at it. Luckily, we’re armed with cheese, sausage, and cheetos – all gifts from our over-packed friend back in Red’s Meadow. With some effort and patience (entirely on Keith’s part) we manage to turn our sad little breakfast around. While we eat we watch hikers stream out from around the lake, at least 50 people merge onto the trail heading north or south. Who are all these people? It’s so easy to imagine we’re out here on this unique adventure, but really we’re just part of the conga line.

Today we’ll climb 2,600 feet up towards Island and Donahue Passes and enter our third and last national park: Yosemite.

As we climb through the splotchy afternoon rain, and later crossing a creek going in the opposite direction of I share a smile and a nod to several female hikers and I realize there is some deeper connection there, a phenomenon that has connected all of the smiles and nods I’ve shard with women on this trail, an intimacy shared across time and space, visible for the briefest of moments: The Lady Nod.

The Lady Nod says: hey girl, I see you. And: it’s ok, you’re doing it. And: more importantly: you’re stronger than you know. Because any woman who has spent time in the outdoors knows that they’re a unique breed, fighting against the tide of white, male, able-bodied ego that is prevalent in both outdoor media and on the trails themselves. From online social forums where posts from women are met with derision and dismissal, to gear that isn’t fit or made for our bodies and where ‘unisex’ is about as close as it gets, to the countless outdoor media brands that splash their covers with white thin male faces, men who concur and own nature as though it was something to be claimed by birthright.

The Lady Nod acknowledges all of this and more. It is the soft, unspoken agreement of sisterhood mixed with the thrill of seeing yourself represented in these wild places. Even if it is only for the briefest flash of time, as you pass each other on the trail, smile, go your own way.

Evening finds us descending through the trees towards the flat expanse of Tuolomne Meadows, the river meandering and broad as it cut’s a wandering channel through the tall grass.

The smoke fills the valley, permeating deep into the trees, creeping up towards us. A silent, luminous pall – we walk right into it, and stop soon after. The smoke is too unpleasant to walk through.

5:30pm and we’re calling it a day. 7pm and we’re in our tent. What to do. What to do? We’ve reached an impasse where physical adaptation lags behind mental motivation. Meaning, we haven’t yet grown our hiker legs yet, but we’d rather be hiking that sitting in camp. Meaning, truly, we’re tired all the time.

Red’s Meadow to Thousand Islands Lake

We’re up at 6:30am, which isn’t early by hiker standards – or even my normal standards – but I feel like I’m finally starting to mellow to the fact that we’re just not in that big of a rush. We emerge from our tent to find the backpackers campground is buzzing with activity. Everyone seems to know each other and I feel a little like an outsider. Are we just terrible at making friends?

But no, the majority of our compatriots are hiking 8 miles down to Rosalee lake, while we’ll be knocking out 15 today.  They’ve been hiking 6-10 miles a day and we’re just now passing them. People comment that we’re moving “light and fast” or “going really far” and I can never discern from their tone if they’re impressed or judgmental, or simply feel the need to comment as a means to validate their own pace.

We make and eat breakfast, and rummage through the hiker box filled with miscellaneous dried items vacuum sealed into plastic bags. Mmm mm sketchy food! I score some candy bars and oatmeal from a SoBo hiker who so massively over-estimated his food needs that he’s giving away most of his resupply box. Keith supplements his dwindling Snickers stash “two a day until the end of the trail!” he gleefully proclaims. We say farewell to Phil and then finally finally we’re on the trail by 8am, hiking out past Devil’s Post Pile.

Despite all the calories we ate yesterday Keith and I are both dragging ourselves up the trail today, grateful for the fact that it’s cool and overcast, both listening to podcasts to distract from the tiredness and when we stop for a break I take on the roll of enthusiastic cheer leader – when you’re a hiking party of two only one person at a time is allowed to be in a funk or else you never get anywhere.

But get somewhere we must and so we move on towards our second snack break of the day. After all, backpacking is just walking through the mountains with snacks.

At the bottom of a steep, tightly switch backed descent we stop at a glittering blue lake and watch a bird snatch a fish right out of the water and fly off overhead. The fish still wriggling in the birds talons. “Oh sibling of Trevor” I think “you are certainly about to become lunch.”

Making our way along the edge of the lake after our snack I stumble, whack my trekking pole on a tree and it breaks. I then proceed to totally lose it in a really unflattering way. I cry. No, I ugly cry and hard. Succumbing to a tidal wave of emotions, made all the worse for the fact that I can’t really figure out why I’m so upset. While I ugly cry Keith kicks into Engineering Problem Solver Mode (his favorite mode, I think) and begins to splint my broken pole with tent stakes and athletic tape. He’s so sweet and patient during the whole operation and I’m still unable to control myself. I like to think I’m not a materialistic person, I’ve been known to clean out my closet to the point where I have almost nothing to wear, and would be perfectly happy to don the same outfit every day were it socially acceptable. And yet, breaking my trekking pole feels like letting down a close friend. A friend whose been on countless exciting adventures with me. A friend who Keith helped me to pick out because he knew they’d help tremendously with my hiking. And now my poor friend is broken, and I’ll simply have to throw them in the garbage and replace them after the trip. And for whatever reason this breaks my heart.

I’m morose for the next hour as we hike along this gorgeous lake, on soft downy dirt trail, covered by the good good trees so strong and silent above us. All afternoon we climb past lakes, with the sun playing hide and seek behind high clouds but never fully committing to showing it’s face.

Towards the top of the climb we meet an angry woman who demands that we tell her what the climb up to Rosalee Lake is like. When we tell her that the climb will be steep and full of switch backs she tells us we’re wrong and then stands in the middle of the trail so we can’t go around her. Neither of us know what this woman wants. Though it seems to be perfectly clear that she doesn’t want to yield right of way to us, the uphill hikers. Finally, unable to figure out anything else to tell her we edge around her on the trail with a half hearted “have a good hike.” This too, seems to offend her, and recognizing a lost cause Keith and I push on and out of sight.

The afternoon simply crushes me and the insane vistas, lakes nestled impossibly among granite monoliths, grey skies muffling the sounds of the world outside our little dirt path that will take us north, all of this is somewhat lost on me. When we finally roll into camp I’m almost too tired to eat.

We heap honey BBQ Fritos (which are gods gift to thru hikers btw) onto our dinner soup and this somewhat revives me. The sunset burning pink above us, reflected and refracted like stained glass in the water below us. Second best of the trip.

By 8pm we’re in our tent and it’s lights out. I’m so deeply tired.

Ivabell Hot Springs to Red’s Meadow

Today is day 14, two full weeks. Does this mean we’re officially dirt bags? Officially hikertrash? Gosh I hope so.

We wake up to our first alarm of the trail. We know the climb to Red’s will be long, hot, and exposed, and we want to get on the trail as soon as possible. Plus, rumor has it that there are milkshakes at Red’s Meadow, and I would have woken up at 2am if you could promise me a milkshake. I would shank a donkey for a milkshake.

Today waking up to an alarm buys us another treat – more hot spring time. We venture to the closest spring and have it all to our selves this morning. I can feel my muscles unwinding in the hot water, my tendons lengthening. I’ve been trying to fight the onset of tendonitis in my calves and feet with nightly massages and it’s only partially working.

We breakfast on the old standby: crushed cheetos (#sponsoredbycheetos – I wish) and mountain house breakfast skillet. The food I’ve eaten on this trip could best be described and horrifying in it’s nutritional shortcomings. That and I’m really getting sick of these fucking eggs. But. Nothing to be done!

The first four miles of the trail descend along the creek to a bridge. More evidence of avalanche activity – root balls exposed, trees ripped from their homes and thrust into the trail. At the creek we tank up on water, chug some brondo (it’s what the body craves) and begin the climb. Getting out of the valley is easy. Slogging along six more miles through sand and ripe horse shit is exhausting. We’re pushing hard to Red’s. Not stopping for snacks, or water.

Along the way we pass two big groups and maybe three to four additional pairs of hikers. All are headed down to Ivabell Hot Springs. All are surprised when we tell them their the newest member in a disconnected conga line. Bless. We all think we’re so unique.

Suddenly up on a ridge we can see the back of Mammoth Mountain and then everything stops. We have LTE! this small precious connection to the outside world. Keith and I huddle and hard stare at our phones for 15 minutes. I send a message to my family just some light details and that we’re still alive and I’m thrilled that I get a text back quickly from my mom. It’s funny, we’re not really the type of family to call each other every day, sometimes not even every week but suddenly I miss them all terribly and start to cry a little while I group text them updates. Then quick as it came, we’re out of service again and we move on.

With less than a mile to go to Red’s Meadow we are blasted by tourist. They all smell amazing; clean like laundry and soft indoors things. I knew I’d smell on the trail, it’s hardly shocking when you consider we exercise all day, don’t bathe, and then sleep on the dirt. What I didn’t consider is that your nose never adjusts to your own oder. I know I smell as intensely as I know that these bright, scrubbed people don’t smell and I allow myself to linger here among the wafting scent of cleanliness.

Finally we’re at Red’s Meadow with the crowds and the food. Then, from nowhere it’s Phil! Phil is here! We thought he’d be a day behind us and now he’s here, what sorcery. We eat burgers and potato salad together and Phil tells us he’s done with the trail. We try earnestly to persuade him otherwise, create alternate plans that would give him lower milage days, invite him to hike out with us.

But in the end his heart isn’t in it, he misses home, his girlfriend. He says repeatedly that he didn’t know this hike would be so hard. “I just can’t handle another pass” he says. In the end he makes plans to get off the trail the following day. Once he’s decided I try to make him feel good about his choice. Thru hiking isn’t for everyone, and that’s ok.

After lunch Phil goes off to shower and call his girlfriend while Keith and I try to go nap – but mostly I end up petting a dog that’s tied up near by. I try and feel happy for Phil, he looks relieved to know he’s done. But I can’t really imagine making the same choice. Maybe because I (and by extension I assume Keith) knew this was going to be hard much if not most of the time. I end up on the opposite side of the spectrum from Phil. I love thru hiking. I’ve accepted that there will be 3,000 foot climbs that I’m not going to want to do, and that thru hiking isn’t some blissed out life, it’s more like a master class in accepting discomfort and letting go of attachment and anticipation.

We spend the afternoon relaxing, waiting for our stomachs to be hungry for food again. The tourists look angry as they wait in a long line for the shuttle that will take them back to Mammoth and their air conditioned hotel rooms. Is everybody this stressed out on vacation? A guy in army boots complains to his bro about his quads seizing up after a two mile hike, babies cry, girlfriends scowl, and uppity soccer dads give anyone who even thinks about cutting the bus line the stink eye. I try not to feel superior to these people and fail.

In the end we opt not to hike out tonight, and instead grab some adult beverages to supplement our burgers and milkshakes (!) and hang out with the dirtbags in the hiker campsite. Around the fire we talk about equestrians on the trail. And I’m surprised to find so many people who echo my feelings about equestrians on the trail. In short: We hate that they bring their big, stupid, non-native animals into the backcountry where they shit and piss on everything. We hate the the riders have no responsibility to pick up after their animals. And we hate that they look down their animals noses at us as we give them the right of way and they barely say thank you. If I could wave a magic wand and ban pack animals from the high sierras I would. Or at least force them to clean up after their big dumb pets like everybody else has to.

People trickle off to their tents in ones and in pairs. I’m in no rush, and I spend the evening chatting with a guy heading SoBo who has packed such an insane abundance of food that it’s comical. It’s barely past hiker midnight when the party breaks up. I snuggle down in my perfectly fluffy quilt, ear plugs in. Finally, sleep.

Chief Lake to Ivabell Hot Springs

We wake late today. Partially due to not getting enough sleep while partying at VVR, and partially because we know that we have a pretty mellow day ahead of us. We’ll be hopping on the Fish Creek trail, an alternate that will take us to Ivabell Hot Springs where we plan to while away the afternoon soaking in the hot waters there.

After two miles on the JMT we merge onto the Fish Creek Trail which we’ll follow along the creek of the same name, up and over a small ridge, and down to the hot springs. We’re trying to rush today, but the heat is crushing us and we don’t move as quickly as we like. Still by 1pm we’re high on a ridge looking down into the hot springs. We can spot small collections of tents in the trees.

The ideal time to visit a hot spring in Southern California is not labor day weekend when droves of clued in, cool kids from LA and SF pour into the mountains  and their secret spots that, like, nobody knows about. Except everybody knows. Nothing to be done. By this point in the hike our schedule has shifted enough that the only way to avoid the inevitable crowds at the hot springs would be to not go at all. That’s clearly not an option for Keith, so here we are.

We drop down a series of tight switchbacks, through more evidence of the avalanches that ripped through these mountain valleys taking out trees the size of telephone poles in the process.

In camp, it’s oppressively hot. And all we can do is chase little patches of shade until the sun stops harassing us. We haven’t been this low in elevation since we started on the trail and now it’s apparent that the heat from the central valley is encroaching into the higher elevations.

At 6pm we hit the fulcrum of hunger and heat aversion and the temptation of food spurns us out of our respective shaded hiding places. Tonight is spaghetti and meat sauce and it’s amazing. I’m realizing that hiker hunger is starting to hit me, and I’m hungry much of the day. While I’m actively eating I start to think about what I want to buy in Red’s Meadow. Chips for sure, cheese, salami. Just nothing sweet. I didn’t think it was possible to get sick of chocolate, but that’s another thing I can add to the “Stuff Kara is Wrong About” list.

During dinner we chat with a girl who’s part of a large group from San Francisco up for the long weekend. She’s a transplant to Cali – just like everyone – by way of Oregon and Vermont. We talk thru hiking and the JMT. Keith and I share the story of a hiker we’ve only heard lore of called 100 Pounds.

From stories told round the camp fire we’ve learned that 100 Pounds is a SoBo PCT hiker who is training to hike the single year triple crown in 2018 (that is to complete the AT, PCT, and CDT in one year, that’s like 8,000 miles of hiking, it’s crazy town banana pants, but people do it). Apparently this cat got it in his head that the best way to do that would be to carry weeks worth of food at a time, instead of just 3-8 days like most hikers do, and then save time by rarely going into town. This is resoundingly the opposite of what nearly everyone else does. It’s amazing how some people can take all the collective knowledge of those who have come before and then decide to do something illogically backwards. God speed 100 Pounds, you’re gonna need it.

Once the sun sets we hike up the ridge into the gloaming light and settle in a hot spring, the water is perfect for just sitting, hours and days could pass sitting here.

Another hiker shows up and we have the repeat conversation that comes with meeting people who aren’t thru hikers. A girl asks if we’re sad to be almost done – six days left to be precise. I’m struck in the moment that I hadn’t considered this notion, to be sad the end of our trip is approaching. Intellectually I know we’re on the home stretch but mentally I feel like I could stay out here forever.

We watch the sun set over the valley, through the smoke. There is no golden hour during fire season, the smoke suspended in the air leads to a permanent feeling of the sun almost setting. The stars pop out, just a few, their siblings muted behind the smoke and bats swoop over the water, catching bugs, pulling airborne acrobatics. Tee hee actrobatics.

VVR to Chief Lake