Fri, Jun 20, 2003
|
With: | Matthew Holliman |
Matthew arrived at my house in San Jose promptly at 2a, having very little sleep that night. I had gotten up early (5a) Thursday morning and gone to bed at 8p so I could get some rest. I drove Matthew's Outback all the way to Yosemite to allow him more rest, but he didn't catch a wink the whole drive. Either my conversation skills were positively riveting, or Matthew just can't sleep well in a car. We stopped in Oakdale to refill, and I found in the GasMart that Starbucks now sells their caffeine-ladden Frappuccinos in a larger size. I had already consumed several of the smaller bottles that I had brought in a cooler, so needless to say I was hopped up enough on a sugar/caffeine combo that I had no trouble driving at all.
Our plan was to drop me off in White Wolf, hiking east up the canyon. Matthew would drive
to Tuolumne Meadows and hike in the opposite direction, then I would pick him up
afterwards back at White Wolf. When we arrived at the White Wolf turnoff, we were slightly
dismayed to find the gate closed. Rats. We had heard it was closed earlier in the month,
but thought it
ought to be opened by now. It wasn't a serious problem as it only adds another mile and
a half or so to a 30 mile hike. What difference could it possibly make? Several other cars
were parked at the gate entrance, most likely backpackers we guessed. I had my day pack
all ready to go the night before, so it took only a minute to drop me off and say goodbye
to Matthew. I was suddenly overcome with a feeling of abandonment that I hadn't expected,
and didn't feel like I had any time to prepare for. Was this going to be fun or an epic
mistake? Matthew got back in the car and drove off before I could decide, and by then it
didn't matter. The feeling subsided and I headed off
down the road to White Wolf.
It was nice cool morning, just after 6a, and the sun had not yet risen. It was expected
to be a warm day, so I was hoping to avoid the sun as long as possible. I jogged as I
headed down the road, taking advantage of good footing to move at a faster pace. All was
quiet in the fields alongside the road, a chilly dew hanging onto everything green. When
I reached White Wolf I found a lone car with its occupant in the campground, how he got in
through the locked gate was a bit of a mystery. I left the road here, heading out on the
trailhead that heads first east, then north at a junction with the main trail. Though
the ground was mostly flat here, it was quite swampy and I danced around the trail
trying to keep my socks and tennis shoes from getting wet. I was no longer jogging, but
I wasn't exactly successful at keeping dry. 30 miles in wet feet didn't sound very
inviting to me, and I wondered if my shoe selection had been appropriate. After a few
miles the swamps relented and I was once more hiking on dry ground. This was the worst
of the swampy sections I would find for the day as it turned out. The sun rose in the
east just before 6:30a, first
touching the treetops, then filtering down to the forest
floor. A few colorful
wildflowers were found along the trail, though not as many as I
would find later in the canyon.
Eventually the trail starts heading downhill when I reached the rim of the Tuolumne
Canyon. It was not a dramatic rim as in Yosemite, but a more gradual one, though it did afford
some
decent views. At a junction with the Hetch-Hetchy Trail, I noted the Tuolumne Meadows
sign indicating 26mi to go. That sure seemed like a very long way. The trail took
a northeast slant as it made its way down to the bottom of the canyon. The sun was higher now,
and I found the south-facing canyon wall didn't afford me the shade from the sun that
I was hoping it would. And it got noticeably warmer the further I descended, a combination
of more sunlight and lower elevation doubling the effect. Where I could look down to the
canyon below I wasn't so impressed by the views, particularly looking downriver.
Pate
Valley looked pleasant enough, sitting at a junction of two major tributaries.
About a third of the way down the side of the
canyon I came across a lone backpacker stopped at a side stream. He was heading up the way
I'd just come down and asked about directions to Yosemite Valley. Aside from the question
sounding odd, his head was swarming with mosquitoes that made me nervous. I had heard they
were bad this year, but this was the first I'd seen of them - and they looked nasty. We
spoke only briefly before I jumped on a log and across the stream - I didn't want to stop
long enough to give his mosquito friends a chance to latch onto me. As I continued down
I put some DEET on my exposed face and hands. The rest of me was covered (long-sleeve
T-shirt, long pants, hat) and I was happy to not get a single bite the whole day.
Sometime later I came out of the woods among some granite slabs that the trail cuts through
(dynamited, of course) with some small streams trickling down the faces. I stopped here
where I had nice view of Pate Valley below and filled a water bottle in the stream. I
carried two bottles with me, but never had more than one full. With practically the whole
route following water courses it didn't seem necessary to overload on water weight. I had
a granola bar while I rested for a few minutes and continued on. By the time I reached
Pate Valley at 9a,
a mysterious and magically distant place that I had seen on the maps and heard
mention of many a time, I could not figure out why anyone would bother to camp here. True,
it was the junction of two major branches of the Tuolumne as well as the junction with the
trails that follow the rivers, but there was little in the way of views, it was hot, and
the mosquitoes seemed to have the run of the place. The nicest feature was the grand
river
flowing by, and I suppose that combined with some flat ground makes it inviting to the
backpacking crowd. I met an elderly couple here, probably
in their 60s, heading in the opposite direction. They didn't seem to have anything nice to
say about Pate Valley either - so much for backpackers liking this place. The few minutes
I stopped to talk to them was the only time I stopped while in Pate Valley,
for fear that the mosquitoes would latch onto my trajectory. Only
21 miles to go.
After I crossed the
bridge here taking me to the north side of the river, there were some
swamps encountered just past the junction with the trail
wildly overgrown, but it didn't
slow me down much at all. In fact the
flowers found here were the most intricate and
beautiful I found all day. This point marked the low point along the route - it was all
uphill from here. I was actually looking forward to the climb really, hoping the air would
cool as I gained altitude. It occurred to me that it might be hot as hell down here by the
time Matthew reaches it. That in fact was the case. While I doubt the temperatures reached
100F as he claimed, I had little doubt that with the mosquitoes and mugginess it would
certainly feel like it. Matthew reported that the heat sapped his remaining energy just as
he would have to begin the climb out of the canyon - and this led to a significant slowdown
at the end of the hike. As for me, it was still morning, and I was now hiking a pleasant
section that followed
close to the river. The canyon here is not steep, but the
water flows busily by in a noisy series of
shallow cascades,
flowers
lining parts of the banks.
Where the trail climbed high above the river, I stopped
to admire the views.
I had expected steep granite cliffs
like Yosemite Valley, but found very little of it. Instead, it more resembled a younger
Kings Canyon, a deep V-groove cutting the main channel, with side streams cutting smaller
V's off to the side. The streams cascaded down from the rim above rather than fall in giant
leaps as in Yosemite, but it was no less grandeur. I fancied the adventures one might have
in climbing the side canyons following the streams on the south-facing walls. Far less
accessible than Yosemite Valley, these side canyons are probably very rarely visited.
The trail crossed two side streams (one of them is
Register Creek)
that came down the north side of the canyons, both of them
dropping sharply in steep cascades that rumbled through the surrounding forest. They had
cool (cold, actually) and enchanting pools and small falls that invited me to linger momentarily
to enjoy the cool spray that permeated the air. Though not high-water time of year, it was
still higher than average, and crossing Register Creek took some measure of route finding and
balance to find and then cross wet logs that provided a way across. Though not difficult, with
a full backpack (as that elderly couple were carrying) it would certainly become a greater
challenge, and their prowess grew proportionately in my mind as I considered they must have
done just this earlier.
Above Register Creek the trail begins to climb steeply as it bypasses Muir Gorge.
It did indeed grow somewhat cooler as I climbed higher, though not as much as I'd hoped, and
very little breeze to help things along. 3hrs out of Pate Valley I began to wonder when I
might run into Matthew coming the opposite direction. I had an hour headstart on him, but he
would be travelling all downhill to Pate Valley, so I suspected we might meet close to the
middle. Though I had been thinking about, it caught me off guard when I rounded a turn in the
trail and found Matthew not 10 feet in front of me. I had been hiking six hours now and
Matthew five. He had been making pretty good time and there was little chance I would complete
the rest of the route in the same five hours. But I set that as a goal with the expectation
it would probably take an hour longer still. We only exchanged a few sentences and
photos
before heading separate ways. This part of the trail has some great views of the cascades
coming down the southside walls. At the top of Muir Gorge, a
small stream makes its
way down from the Ten Lakes area around Colby Mtn. The trail at this point is quite high
above the river, and offers a swell view looking
up the canyon.
Further up the trail I was enthralled with the
spectacular view of Cathedral Creek cascading down a side canyon.
The headwaters from this
creek come from the small lake and semi-permanent snowfield found in a hidden amphitheater on
the north side of Cathedral Peak - it would make a fine adventure to follow this creek up
to Tioga Road. Eventually the trail makes its way back down to the river where I
enjoyed the cooler temperatures and roar of the
cascades.
Shortly before reaching Return Creek I passed a group of three backpackers, the first persons
I found going the same way as myself. I stopped at the creek for some pictures and a short
rest while the three, two men and a woman, all in their twenties, went out in front again.
Other hikers, now mostly
dayhikers, were making their way down from Glen Aulin to enjoy
the views.
Above
Return Creek is probably the most picturesque part of the whole canyon,
a series of falls
(really more like cascades than falls) whose roar reverberates through the canyon in a deafening
thunder. There are three named falls on the map leading up to Glen Aulin, but I found these
hard to identify precisely. Perhaps if I studied the map a bit more closely (I don't think I
looked at it more than three or four minutes the whole day as I found the route-finding rather
trivial) or spent more time among them it would have been more obvious, but there seemed to be
many series of cascades with the named ones just being the prominent of the bunch. The first
is named
Waterwheel Falls which I thought to be an odd name for a waterfall.
But then I saw a
cascade where the water shot down in a narrow, shallow channel, slammed into a rock 80-100ft
lower after the water had picked up considerable speed, and sent a spray of water up into the
air. In fact there were
two such features on this smooth granite waterslide,
and the effect made
them look like the spray coming off the paddlewheel of an old riverboat steamship - which I
surmised is where the name Waterwheel came from (turns out I wasn't correct on this).
The headwall aside the falls is steep, and the trail makes a series of switchbacks to gain
altitude, exposed to the sun and unfortunately blocking the breeze that was felt elsewhere. I
passed the three backpackers again on my way up, and began to find even more dayhikers along
the trail. This upper section is definitely more well travelled. Above Waterwheel is
LeConte Falls,
though again it is more of a cascade. The
canyon walls on the north side close in
starting at LeConte Falls, vertical granite walls rising up 2,000ft to Wildcat Point above. The
last named water feature before Glen Aulin is
California Falls, roaring down right next to the trail.
Above here, I came to Glen Aulin, a mile-long stretch of nearly flat meadow (it seems obvious that
there was a lake here at one time in the past with the outlet at California Falls). The trail
was underwater in places, making it hard to navigate. I followed a threesome of dayhikers in
front of me who were also making their way through the swamp. Not being too careful at one log
crossing my left foot slipped in, completely waterlogging that shoe and foot. Oh well,
only five more miles to go...
Despite the presence of the High Sierra Camp, the Glen Aulin area is truly beautiful.
There are several water features in the immediate area (
White Cascade and Tuolumne Falls)
that offer cool respites, and the views
around the canyon and up to the cliff walls are
excellent. The closer
I drew to Tuolumne Meadows the greater grew
the traffic on the trail.
While Matthew had seen about eight parties when he came through in the morning, I came across
about twenty. Around the
top of Tuolumne Falls I was treated to a glimpse of the
high peaks to the east on the Sierra
Crest, but that was just a teaser as the view soon fades behind a ridge. But even better was the
view of the
Cathedral Range to the south as I finally reached Tuolumne Meadows. I had felt
pretty good for the first 25 miles, but these last five since Glen Aulin were showing I was about
run out. I was rather happy there wasn't yet another five to go. In the vicinity of Soda Springs
I stopped to check out the springs and the buildings here. What looked like a half-finished
log cabin was a protection for the main spring that comes out of the ground here,
and first drew the
attention of visitors more than a hundred years ago. Inside was a small series of pools with water
coming up from the largest. A sign above it indicated the source of the water is drinkable, but
people or animals may have contaminated the pools. I looked at the pools, at the sign, back
at the pools. Curiosity won over fear, and I scooped up a handful of it to drink. Naturally
carbonated, it tasted like ... soda water. Who would have guessed? I took a second drink mostly
due to the novelty of it rather than because I enjoyed the taste, then went on. I heard a mother
and daughter move in to check it also, with a remonstrance from the mother warning the daughter
to not drink the water. Fear wins over curiosity that time.
I hiked across Tuolumne Meadows towards SR120, enjoying the views in all directions.
What a fine
afternoon up here indeed. Though I heard a few visitors complaining about the nasty mosquitoes,
I didn't get a bite and saw but a handful though my DEET had worn off long ago. I found Matthew's
car at the highway exactly where he had described it, and the first thing I did was get out of
my shoes and into a dry pair. My feet were white and wrinkled, looking as though they were
deciding whether to go for full-on trenchfoot. Giving them air did a world of good. Even better,
no blisters. I was now sold on these expensive wicking socks (Ultimax) and vowed to use them
on all my long hikes. Keeping out of the water would probably help even more.
It was just before 6p, having taken just under 12 hours for the 30+ miles.
Not the ten hours I was unrealistically hoping for, but fair nonetheless.
Now I needed to retrieve Matthew. I was pretty sure he wasn't going to be done hiking yet, even within the next hour. I drove to the Tuolumne Lodge to see if I could get a quick shower but the sign indicated I was several hours late for visitor-use hours. Drats. I then drove on to White Wolf, arriving around 7p. To my surprise, the gate was open and I could drive all the way in. Even better, the dinning room at the lodge there was open. I waited about 30 minutes for Matthew, then decided to get dinner at the lodge before they closed at 8p. Though the food is pricey, the service was great and the food pretty damn good considering I thought I'd be settling for granola bars and beef jerky. The lodge had just opened this afternoon, and I was lucky to be there for opening night. Normally advance reservations are needed for dinner since it is a popular pasttime, but the crowd was low and half the tables were empty. I wasn't worried about Matthew being late, as it had taken him some four hours longer on our Rose Peak hike of a similar nature, but he had been making good progress when I last left him and thought he'd be out by now. The restaurant closed with still no Matthew, so I got an ice cream bar at the small store there as a bonus treat. I was quite stuffed by the time I finished, and Matthew came strolling in some ten minutes later. He was too late for dinner, but at the prices didn't seem to mind, and he was just able to get a fruit bar as a finishing treat before the store closed as well.
Matthew had brought lots of food with him, and he ate some of this while I drove us back to Tuolumne Meadows. We were supposed to meet Michael for our hike the next day, but the meeting place we'd chosen (Tuolumne Campground) was not yet open for the season. So instead we drove to the trailhead parking lot near Tuolumne Lodge and slept out in the woods not far from our car. We would meet up with Michael in the morning in the parking lot - right now we were both just interested in getting some well-earned rest...
Continued...
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