I left you in a somber mood with the last episode of the famous soap opera known as The Yosemite Diaries. Jim had died at the hands of a sasquatch in the middle of the worst hail storm in the written history of the Sierras. Darkness had fallen on our camp and we slept in the protection of our nylon shelters. As always the sun rose to awaken us from our slumber and we all waddled out of our tents at the ass crack of dawn thankful that the bears had not eaten us alive.
Much like the previous day, we were in no particular rush to leave our campsite. We meandered around doing the morning chores. Ben spent a good chunk of time devising ways to brew his coffee. Including tying a filter to the top of his mug and slowly pouring hot water over. This seemed to be going pretty good until he almost had the mug full, at which point the filter broke and dumped all the grounds into the mug. We finally felt bad enough for him and gave him some of the Starbuck’s Microgrounds that we had brought. That put a smile on his face.
Despite our vacation like demeanor, we all knew that today was a bit bigger of a day than the previous. We first had to climb up to the Sunrise High Sierra Camp and from there our path would lead us over Cathedral Pass. This meant we would be climbing, but the minimal mileage we would be covering kept us at ease.
The one thing we were really looking forward to was hitting the High Sierra Camp in Sunrise Meadow. Shelby had read that they sometimes had supplies and we were hoping to pick up a bottle of bug spray. The thought of having a repellant to the vampires circling our heads was a wish and a dream that we all hoped to realize.
Once Ben had coffeed up, we broke camp and headed down the trail.
One of the first things we had noticed that morning was the fact that the sky was not clear. The clouds were already building and after the horrific storm the day before, we were concerned about making the trip before the sky’s fury was, once again, unleashed upon us.
We said our last goodbyes to Jim leaving notes and flowers on his grave and made our move. The going was fairly easy, from what I can remember through the grief is that we spent a lot of time walking through meadows with intermittent climbs between them. The clouds constantly grew and we were sprinkled on a few times. But the Gods smiled on us, mostly due to Shelby’s incessant praying and steadfast faith.
We found the High Sierra Camp completely abandoned. It looked like the plague had come through and our suspicions rose when we read the flyers stapled to a few trees informing guests that the water had not passed its last inspection. We did not find any bug spray, but we did find lots of mosquitoes. And by lots, I mean plague worthy amounts. If you have seen pictures of swarms of mosquitoes following poor hikers through beautiful meadows, then you have a semblance of an understanding of how thick it was. Not only did I keep my rain jacket on, I put the hood up and wore mosquito netting over my face. At one point, I tried to pee, that wasn’t a good idea…
Once we left the meadows and started our last climb toward Cathedral Peak, the bugs fell behind and we were able to continue without our hoods on. The temperature had dropped and having our jackets on actually felt pretty good. We could see and hear the storm all around us, but stayed dry. Again, thanks to Shelby.
After peaking, we headed down which is when we ran into the guy mentioned in the first episode of The Yosemite Diaries. He was friendly upbeat and looked pretty clean. He asked us how much farther it was to the top. We informed him he was just about there. He got a smile on his face and said that he had 16 more miles to go and he would be done. He was finishing the John Muir Trail as a thru-hike. Being on his 11th day, he was finishing up the 220 mile loop and look much less fatigued than our ragged band of travelers. After a few moments of small talk, we parted ways.
The storm continued to brew. We quickened our pace hoping to find a camp site before the sky opened its drain.
I was beginning to get hungry and grouchy and the closer we got the more moisture that fell from the sky. We passed a lot of day hikers in shorts and t-shirts. One family, two parents and a little girl, were hunkered down under a rock with hopes that the storm was going to pass quickly. We finally found an acceptable place to camp and threw, literally threw our tents up. The rain started coming down torrentially. There was no time to get lunch ready. Once the tent was up, we stashed as much gear as we could inside and jumped in.
The rain fell hard. And then turned to hail. After 2o minutes, I peaked under the rain fly. The ground was white, completely covered in hail stones. We stayed hunkered down and watched the hail stones bounce off the tent. I couldn’t help but feel bad for the family stuck under the rock, freezing. Oh yea, I forgot to mention it got really cold.
I had not been feeling well all day and now laying cold and hungry in the tent, I completely passed out. I woke up and things were still falling outside. I was starving, but warm and thankful that I hadn’t skimped when purchasing my tent.
Of course, the storm let up. As soon as it seemed that it was safe to go outside without getting completely drenched, I was out there getting food ready. It was late afternoon and I hadn’t eaten anything but granola bars since breakfast. With the moisture and drop in temperature, it was cold. Luckily the sun broke through and dried things out a bit. Once the ground was dry, we started dragging sleeping bags and pads out of the tents. Rain was falling as we were setting up so things had gotten wet. Ben had the misfortune of finding out that his tent had been mis-sewn and caused a leak in the door. From what I hear, he doesn’t have that tent any more.
The hunger was satisfied and we all just kind of started walking around and enjoying our surroundings. Cathedral Lake is beautiful. It was an excellent choice for our last night in the back country. The lake sits in a big granite bowl and the overflow of the bowl cascades down the granite to the valley floor way below. On the opposite side of the lake a steep headwall rises over the water and with the recent rain had water flowing down from many a snow patch clinging to its crevices.
KB and I made the rounds. By the time we got back to camp, I was feeling a bit under the weather. I was lightheaded and coughing quite a bit. I laid down to rest and passed out again for a little bit.
When I awoke, things were cold. At this point, I was regretting leaving the down jacket in the car. The wool base layer covered by my rain jacket was not enough to keep the cold out. Luckily, Ben and Shelby had made another fire and we were able to hunker down around the flames as our last evening in Yosemite was coming to an end.
Shelby and Ben then realized that they had been packing their hammocks this entire time and hey, what wouldn’t feel better than standing around? That’s right lounging in a hammock. Of course, it was cold so they had to be somewhat close to the fire. Shelby got his all set up, but Ben was having a hard time finding trees within reach of the fire’s warmth but still close enough together to string things up. Shelby wanted to help and they began devising a way to string the two together to make it work for both. Several different plans were drawn and then determined to be no good. Finally, they strung up Shelby’s and then attached Ben’s to Shelby’s string. This worked well, until Shelby got up and the pressure holding the string onto the tree dropped Ben a good 6″. That was kind of the end of the hammocks for the night.
Then we spent the rest of the night finding wood that was dry enough to keep the fire going.