JMT - Day Five

July 28, 2015
11 miles today, 34 miles total
Tuolumne Meadows to Lyell Canyon

Courtney and I were awake at 6 but lingered around the campsite until 8 talking to Sean and Cassidy. I was having a bit of a stomach ache, so I was glad today was supposed to be an easy, flat day.

We crossed over into the meadow where the Tuolumne river was flowing through. The next ten miles were flat through the Lyell Canyon, following the river on the way to Donohue Pass, which led out of Yosemite and into the wild parts of the JMT.

Courtney and I cruised at a good speed, and without the constant elevation to fight, I was feeling stronger under my newly heavy pack. We were alone for most of the morning, which was a trend from the last few days. People talked about the JMT being a “highway” of hikers, but after a few days of hiking we had only seen a few other people. Courtney and I joked, “where are these 45 people per day who got permits?!”

The afternoon grew warm very quickly, so we stopped by the river to take a dip in the cold water at lunchtime. As we moved on we ran into several packer mule trains, and a band of teenage kids from a local high school practicing for their cross-country meet. Being this close to the National Park makes the trail feel much more touristy. I remembered coming through here two years ago on the PCT, and the noise and scents of civilization were a shock to my senses after being out in the wilderness for two months.

Later in the afternoon we finally met one person who was hiking south on the JMT. His name was Cole, and he had a loping stride that kept up with ours. We chatted on and off for a bit, and together we climbed the steadily rising elevation to Donohue Pass. It was extremely hot out, but I was feeling better in the altitude, so there was something to be said for that.

Halfway up the climb Courtney and I found a lovely campsite beside the river. It was only 2:00pm, so we considered continuing on further, but we knew the trail went up to 11,000 feet in another mile or two, and we weren’t sure what campsites were like near the pass. We also didn’t want to camp that high and risk another icy tent in the morning. We were currently at 9,700 feet and that was good enough, so we stopped early.

Cole stopped with us, but he disappeared around the corner looking for a campsite and we didn’t see him again for several hours, so we assumed he must have hiked on. For a while it was lonely. Courtney and I rinsed our clothes out in the river and set up camp, but after that there wasn’t much to do. We enjoyed the view and played a few games of farkle with the dice I had brought, but I kept looking around the bend waiting for more hikers to join us. I hoped the whole JMT wasn’t this lonely; I was looking forward to meeting people.

Early in the evening, Cole suddenly returned, saying he had found a campsite and had been hanging out there for a while. Then Sean and Cassidy appeared around 5:00pm and decided to stop with us, too. Their plan was to finish the whole trail in 17 days (five days earlier than our plan) but they're taking it a little slower in the beginning. Then, right before bed, two more people showed up – two girls named Heather and Jennifer. It was nice to finally have new friends around, though we only chatted for a little bit before the mosquitoes drove us into our tents at 6:30pm.

JMT - Day Four

July 27, 2015
10 miles today, 23 miles total
Sunrise High Sierra Camp to Tuolumne Meadows

I woke up at 5:30am. I had not slept well at all – a common habit for me at the beginning of all backpacking trips – so it was somewhat of a relief to get out of bed and get moving. Unfortunately, it was freezing this morning! Our poor tent was covered in condensation, and as much as we tried to mop it up, it still rained down on us. I set our wet pack towels outside to dry and was shocked to find that they had frozen solid not ten minutes later. And to think I was going to send my warm clothes home! I put on every layer I brought and jumped around camp trying to get warm. Courtney and I packed up our icy, wet tent and hurried to get on trail so we could warm up.

The hike out of High Sierra Camp had a small, steep climb to Sunrise Pass, but we were rewarded with the beauty of Cathedral Mountain and the lake below. It would have been a beautiful place to camp if we had chosen to keep hiking last night. We paused for second breakfast to enjoy the view, and then hiked on. Even though our bodies were warming up with the effort of hiking, we were still cold enough to keep our gloves and sweaters on. The rest of the morning was mostly downhill hiking with a few small uphills scattered in. I was relieved we weren’t spending yet another day climbing – it had been such a haul to get out of Yosemite Valley, going from 4,000 feet to 10,000 feet in two days! Still, my back, shoulders and feet still hurt with the effort and my backpack still felt heavy with the load of gear, water and food. I hoped it would get easier quickly, especially since the altitude was still making the climbs difficult.

At noon Courtney and I reached Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite, another slice of civilization – this one swamped by RV campers and tourists. It was doubly strange for me, too, since the last time I had seen Tuolumne was when I hiked through here on the PCT two years ago. By that point I had covered over 900 miles in two months, and since I was going northbound, I had just finished the section Courtney and I were about to hike. I had just experienced the JMT and the beautiful granite passes for the first time, and was still awestruck by it, after months of struggling through the hot Southern California desert. The memories flooded me, and seemed like no time at all had passed since I had been here. I half expected Honey Bunny, or Sunshine, or Rotisserie to come around the corner at any minute to say hello. For many of us that year, Tuolumne marked not only the end of the Sierras, but also a parting of ways for many of the hikers whom I had met and spent so much time with. It was a nostalgic feeling.

Courtney and I hung out at the Tuolumne post office all afternoon, resorting our resupply box and eating burgers from the local café. We also sorted through our gear and mailed a box of extraneous items home so we would have less to carry in the coming days. Sean and Cassidy caught up with us around 4:00pm, so we found a campsite near them at the backpacker’s campground. My phone got a moment of signal so that I was able to call Tanner and let him know that I missed him already.

As the day faded, Courtney and I took bathroom-showers by rinsing out our hair and clothes in the sink, then made dinner over our little cookstove and went to bed at 7:30pm.

JMT - Day Three

July 26, 2015
8 miles today, 13 miles total
Little Yosemite Valley to Sunrise High Sierra Camp

There was a fancy two-story wooden privy at the Little Yosemite Valley campground, so we utilized it after packing up. We hit the trail at 7am, determined to get the miles behind us in the early cool of the morning. The first two miles were retracing the path we took to Half Dome, and remembering the pain of it from yesterday, I was dreading it. Fortunately, after a night’s sleep I had fresh legs, and the cold morning warded off the lethargy of yesterday’s heat, so it didn’t feel nearly as painful. We covered the two miles in an hour, the same time it had taken us to do it without 40 pounds on our backs.

We took a break for second breakfast before continuing on; the JMT branched away from Half Dome and into a dark, burned section of trail. The trees cracked eerily toward the sky and the dried river beds kicked up plumes of dust into our shoes. It was already growing hot and the miles seemed to plod by. We met a couple hikers who were headed our direction, but they were moving at a faster clip than us – we stopped for a few moments to chat when a Yosemite Park Ranger hiked through and checked our JMT permits.

It was 11:00am when I checked my elevation maps: the chart veered upward sharply, to the tune of 2,000 feet in 1.5 miles. It was brutal, and hot, and I took it slow, sucking oxygen into my lungs. At 9,000 feet, this was much higher in altitude than my sea-level home in Portland, and my body was struggling with the difference. Courtney hiked ahead with the couple we had met, and I dragged behind, stopping at every turn in the switchbacks to catch my breath. When I finally reached them, they were taking a break on the edge of the hillside, the trail disappearing below and above us for what seemed like miles.

“Care to guess how much more of this uphill we have?” the husband asked me with a crooked smile.
“A quarter mile,” I grunted, still catching my breath.
He was surprised. “How did you know?”
“I have the elevation map,” I said. I didn’t want to admit I had been checking it at every turn, which only made the climb seem longer. I felt like my mind was racing forward while my body lagged behind, not quite ready. I wanted them to be in sync, so I could enjoy the hike rather than suffer through it.

We finally made it to the top where Courtney and I took a break for lunch, and from there it was a gradual downhill to our campsite at 9,600 ft. We had since left the burned swath behind and were hiking through beautiful country: rolling meadows and granite mountain tops framing the skyline. We arrived at our camp early: by 2:00pm, and my feet were hurting enough that it was nice to have a shorter day today.

Our destination was the Sierra High Camp, a backcountry campground that had surprisingly more amenities than we expected: it was populated with a few rustic guest cabins and a clubhouse with a galley kitchen and tables where we had just missed lunch. It was strange to see such a piece of civilization so far from any trailhead.

Courtney and I found a campsite with a great view of the surrounding meadow and set up our tent. After storing our food in the metal bear vaults, we enjoyed exploring the area. We took pictures out in the meadow and watched the marmots and ground squirrels pop out to say hello. We wandered back to the main cabin to play a few rounds of banagrams and farkle, and then sat by the fire pit to make dinner. There were quite a few people milling around, but no one we recognized yet. I wondered how many of them were JMT hikers. We watched the sunset and shrugged on our warmer layers: I had been contemplating sending them home, since it felt like extra weight to carry and it had been swelteringly hot during the day. But now that we were at higher elevations it was clear I would need every layer I brought – even in July.

After the sun set, Courtney and I were getting ready for bed when we finally recognized two faces: Sean and his young daughter Cassidy, whom we had met our first day in Yosemite, while picking up our permits. They had a faster itinerary than we did, so we didn’t expect to see them the whole hike, but it was nice to see new friends again. We bid them goodnight and turned in, bundled up in our sleeping bags.

JMT - Day Two

July 25, 2015
5 miles + 8 miles to/from Half Dome, 5 JMT miles total
Happy Isles Trailhead to Little Yosemite Valley Campsite

Courtney and I rose early this morning, having not been able to sleep very well. It was like anticipating the first day of school: you spend the whole night dreaming about forgetting your locker combination, being late to all your classes, and showing up on campus without pants. Except when you dream about the wilderness, you dream about getting eaten by a bear. Without pants.

“Did you hear me get up to pee last night?” Courtney asked as we packed up for the day.
I vaguely remembered her tumbling out of the tent last night, when I was somewhere in between a bear dream and a broken ankle dream.
“I got lost on the way back,” she said.
“You got lost?!” I glanced out the tent flap, where, directly in my line of sight, was the backpacker’s restroom building.
“There are a LOT of people here!” Courtney said defensively, “and it was dark, and there was a lot of snoring, and I got disoriented! So I came out of the bathroom and took a wrong turn.”
“A wrong turn. We’re ten feet in front of the bathroom,” I said.
“Well, I DID,” she said, “and then I couldn’t find my way back, so I just started stumbling around at random people’s tents until I tripped over our tent ties.”
“God help us try to navigate 221 miles, much less ten feet!” I laughed.

When we were packed and ready to go, we hopped on the shuttle to the Happy Isles trailhead, where begins not only the John Muir Trail, but also the trail to Half Dome. Despite the early hour, there were already gaggles of day hikers making their way up the trail to get their chance to tackle the cables of Half Dome. I envied their tiny packs. Ours were fully loaded with four days worth of food and all our gear, weighing 40 pounds, at least. And the trail out of the Valley was unforgiving. Steep, rocky, slick, and steady. It gained 1,000 feet per mile as it crunched its way out of the Valley and up to Vernal Falls.

My pack was hot and heavy, and it dug awkwardly into my shoulders as I lumbered up the trail. I wasn’t accustomed to it, yet; it was an unwelcome guest hitching a ride, and I couldn’t get comfortable beneath it. But despite its burden, I was in high spirits, and the weather was cool and crisp for an early summer morning, so we made good time up the trail.

We soon reached Vernal Falls, and Nevada Falls shortly after. Courtney and I stopped to put on sunscreen, eat a snack, and take pictures. The sun was growing hotter with each hour, and hiking beneath it more uncomfortable, so we hurried on our way. We only had five miles to our first night’s campground at Little Yosemite Valley, but it seemed much longer. Our permits dictated that we had to camp there our first night, and it was somewhat of a relief to stop early. But it was also only 11:30am, and after setting up our tent, having lunch, and storing our gear in the metal bear containers at the site, we grew bored. Half Dome was only four miles further, and since we had applied for permits to climb it, we decided to put them to use.

Courtney and I removed the tops of our backpacks to use as daypacks. We brought one liter of water each, and a couple of granola bars to eat on the way. I didn’t have any way to secure my pack lid to me, so I used a bit of rope and gear ties to lash it around my waist. Courtney clipped hers to her belt loops, but either way, they banged around uncomfortably as we walked.

The trail to Half Dome followed the JMT for another two miles before splitting off, and for some reason those two miles felt like death warmed over. The afternoon sun was beating down, the trail was rocky and harsh, and the altitude kept slamming me in the chest. We climbed from 6,000 feet to 8,000 feet, and my lungs – accustomed to the sea-level rich oxygen of Portland – gasped through the climb. It took three hours to go the four miles to Half Dome, climbing all the while. On the final ascent up to the sub-dome, my heart was hammering, partially with the altitude and partially in fear – I was not a fan of heights, and I knew the hype that surrounded Half Dome. Every person I passed I asked about the cables.
“Is it scary?” I said again to a hiker who was lounging peacefully against a tree, looking as though he hadn’t a care in the world.
“Stop asking everyone that,” Courtney groaned. “You’re just making it worse.”
“I want to know,” I said. Knowledge made me feel like I had power. Maybe, the more opinions I digested, the more I could wrap my head around the ascent.
“Not so scary,” the hiker responded.
“Are you afraid of heights?” This seemed a critical nuance.
“Yes,” he said. “Are you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But what about heights scares you?” he asked.
“Umm… the height part?”
“That is to say,” he mused, “I’m scared of the falling part. Heights make me scared that I will fall and brutally maim myself so that I will never walk again.”
“Well that’s…. descriptive,” I said.
“But,” he continued, “Half Dome doesn’t scare me because I know if I slip, I will be instantly killed from the fall. There’s comfort in that.”
I stared at him as he closed his eyes again, settling his hat over his eyes.
“Right,” I grumbled. “Thanks for the advice.”
“See?” Courtney said, as we left him napping in our wake, “that’s what happens when you ask people.”

We crawled up the slick scree to the granite-smooth top of sub-dome, and Half Dome itself suddenly loomed in our view. The cables cut a harsh line down the natural curved slope, and a row of people moved like ants up the line. There was a pile of raggedy gloves at the base of the cables, and I grabbed a warm pair from the stack. Courtney went ahead of me, grasping the twisted metal and hauling herself up the line. I followed slowly behind, testing the grip of my shoes against the smooth granite. At each of the cable’s posts was a slat of wood, balanced precariously between them, used as stepping stones on the way up. Frightened people clung to the posts at each stop, bracing themselves against the slats. They blocked the route and made it harder to ascend, particularly for someone afraid of heights. Stopping at each post only made the ascent that much harder; better to go quickly, like ripping off a bandaid. Courtney saw this was the case, so she powered up the cables, weaving in between the frozen people without stopping, trying not to look down. I followed step by step, trying to keep my breathing steady as the cables lurched higher. I moved confidently up the line until I reached halfway, when I ran into a man and woman clinging to both sides of the posts. There was hardly a good way to go between them, and I didn’t want to let go of my death-grip on the cables.
“Going up first?” the man asked, “or should we come down first?”
“You… you come down,” I said.
I waited until they passed me, delicately, like a dance, and then scooted up further on the line. But the momentary pause had broken my rhythm. The edges of the climb loomed up around me. Someone at the top of the cables dropped their water bottle. I heard it clink, clink, clink, all the way down the ridge until it disappeared into the abyss. Suddenly I felt like all the others: frozen on the wooden slats. I peeked up to see Courtney disappearing over the ridge. The cables suddenly curved higher, almost 90 degrees straight up the face of Half Dome for the final ascent. I took a breath and a step – and slipped.

My feet fell from under me and my hands felt sweaty inside the gloves that wrapped tightly around the cables – the only thing keeping me from following the water bottle down the ridge. I found my footing again and clung to the post, looking up and down, deciding which way to go. There were people at the next post, waiting for me to ascend. But my terror had won out, and I slowly turned myself around, scooting back down the cables.

It was a strange sensation, going down. I had read somewhere that it was easier to go face-first, which seemed counter-intuitive. But by bracing my arms in front of me along the cables, I was able to let my feet follow slowly after, and I felt like I had more control that way.

By the time I reached the bottom again, my legs and arms had turned to jelly. I collapsed on one of the rocks of sub-dome, and admired the view from there, which was stunning in its own right. I was down to my last few drops of water, and my tongue felt huge in my throat, dry and thirsty.

The sun was starting to set when Courtney came back down, praising the view from the top. We ate our snacks and downed the last of our water. We still had four miles back to camp.

When we reached our tent, we were exhausted, physically and emotionally spent. Everything in my body hurt in one way or another. Courtney and I cooked a warm dinner and then walked down to the Merced River to fill up our reservoirs.  The river was crisp and clear and inviting, so we stripped to our underwear and waded in, feeling the cold water puddle around us. We washed off the dust of a long day and were asleep by 8:00pm in our tent.