Emigrant Wilderness to Tuolomne Meadows, July 2000

Turly had some photos from this trip on his mac.com pages, but Turly's mac.com pages are no more; one of these days I'll get around to sending my copy of them up to one of my web spaces. I still need to clean up the links in the text below; currently, most of them just point back in time — to Turly's no-longer extant photo album. I still (yes 2/2002) haven't scanned my photos. The one remaining "[*]" mark indicates where I know I have a photo to put here, but it's among the ones I haven't scanned yet.

Summary:

Turly and I walked for a week, starting in the Emigrant Wilderness (on Saturday 30 July 2000), then into northwestern Yosemite and along the Pacific Crest Trail, to Tuolomne Meadows. Arrived at Tuolomne Meadows on the following Friday, 8/4.

Highlights:

The outlet creek from Fawn Lake; cresting the pass between Haystack and Schofield Peaks; the bear in Wilmer Lake; swimming in Benson Lake; getting over Benson Pass; burgers at Tuolomne Meadows Grill.

Prep:

Despite June's Skyline-to-the-Sea trip, I started out in worse shape than last year, but was hoping to carry less backpack weight. I probably did so, but it didn't seem like it.

A point-to-point trip meant that we'd have to arrange a car shuttle of some kind; my son offered to help, and the YARTS (Yosemite Area Regional Transport "System") seemed to offer some options.

As part of my quest to lighten my backpacking load, I was subscribed to the BackpackingLight mailing list at egroups (now groups.yahoo.com). Suggestions from that list had helped out my June trip via a photon light (check it out at http://www.photonlight.com/) and a pocketbright — two separate flashlights for the price of ... 12 grams. They both work well, and I don't think I'll backpack with a full-sized flashlight until I'm ready to backpack above the Arctic circle in the winter (I.e., until hell freezes over.)

For this trip, I made three pepsi can stoves and brought two of them (see http://www.pcthiker.com). I also carried my old Gaz canister backpacking stove for a backup in case my pepsi can stoves didn't work. They worked. Next time, I'm leaving the Gaz stove behind.

I also bought a campmor lightweight tarp (8' by 10') and a cheap plastic groundcloth. This system is about three pounds lighter (and $20 cheaper) than my REI Sololite tent. This week-long trip would be my first backpacking trip with a tarp instead of a tent.

Friday 28 July: (Bay Area to Coulterville & Pinecrest)

Left the bay area after work, and Nik drove his truck, following Turly and me to Coulterville. We dropped my car off in downtown Coulterville (no clues exist there, as to where it might be safe or legal to park a car for a week), and then the three of us (in Nik's truck) drove over to Pinecrest, arriving about 1:30 or 2am. Miraculously found one available site. Slept in my real tent (the REI Sololite) in this crowded campground.

[Rumor has it on USENET/rec.backcountry that you can camp right at Crabtree Camp. I'll have to try that, next time ... ]

Saturday 29 July: (Pinecrest & Crabtree Camp to Wood Lake)

Drove over to the Crabtree Camp trailhead (just over six miles of dirt road off of CA-108). Started walking ... up and over a volcanic ridge with a decent view

and then down into Pine Valley (Bell Creek's canyon). This was a gradual climb along the wide canyon, mostly in sparse pine forest with some views

of the granite canyon walls. Passed unimpressive Grouse Lake.

A group of equestrians passed us, then we saw them a bit later, doing some serious trail maintenance with a large two-person saw. The canyon narrows and steepens; we saw some deer. Crossed Piute Creek and then, after a while, crested the ridge and were treated to a view of the scenic granite bowl of Louse Canyon. We headed downhill to the Creek (the West Fork of Cherry Creek), and took a break and cooled off the feet in the stream. It was pretty warm and I was starting to get tired.

I started dragging pretty badly by late afternoon, as we climbed east from Louse Canyon along Buck Meadow Creek. We stopped for dinner near the trail, and I saw a large brown bird (a large owl, or a golden eagle) swooshing through the forest. This stop turned out to be only about a five minute walk from Wood Lake, where we ended up stopping for our first night's camp.

We placed the bear can, set up tent and tarp, hung the extra food from a conveniently horizontal tree some distance away, and I took some photos of the tarp setup, the lake, etc.

Sunday 30 July: (Wood Lake to Peninsula Lake)

Worried about how well I'd sleep, for my first night under a tarp? No problem, I was so tired I slept like a baby. When morning came, I went over to climb a rock rib nearby and watched the sun rise over Wood Lake, with angular Bigelow Peak visible on the horizon. This is a long, thin lake, two larger bays at each end connected by a narrow canal.

We packed up and started off. The trail manages to bisect the east bay of the lake — that would be a cool spot to take one of those 360-degree QTVR pictures.

Then we made a gradual climb up a bit past a couple of little mucky, mosquito-ey and lily-covered lakes, up to a ridge with a great view over Cow Meadow Lake, but already there were tons of mosquitoes bothering us. Started heading on down towards Cow Meadow Lake — things dried out a bit, and we stopped for tea and breakfast. During this descent, we saw a few dogs and some guys leading horse pack trains. These would be the last people we'd see for a while ...

Down to Cow Meadow Lake, then climbed up to Douglas Lake [*]. Smelled some mint and stopped to find the plant. Figured out that we were too low on water, so I went back to Douglas Lake and filtered some water there. Then we descended, mostly along a dried-up creek, to the south end of Huckleberry Lake. Mosquitoes were pretty bad there. There are several interesting low rock wall dams at that end of the lake, and our route took us over a few of them.

We hit the main trail east of Huckleberry Lake, and started heading north along it. The mosquitoes made us just want to move right along — so much so that we missed the start of our cross-country route, and walked a mile too far north out of the way. We finally figured out from the look of the lake and its islands that we had to turn around. We returned, to locate the start of the cross-country route. Not real sure at first, we finally found the right gully and started some seriously steep climbing.

We reached the ridge, and started the relatively gentle descent to Fawn Lake. Didn't really see much of the lake, but we stopped for dinner just below Fawn Lake. This spot was definitely the highlight of this cross-country section of the trip: a cool, bug-free site along some beautiful, flat granite slabs over (and under!) which Fawn Lake's outlet creek flows. Despite the pretty setting, I didn't eat very much.

Somewhat refreshed and restored, we attacked the nasty-steep climb up towards Peninsula Lake. The bare granite gives way to a steep, forested rib above Peninsula Lake's outlet creek. Nasty climb. Peninsula Lake Creek flows from the lake in a maze of creeklets through a quite marshy area. We crossed there utterly exhausted (well, I was, anyway). Climbed a bit more, to find a couple of sloping tent/tarp sites amongst the mosquitoes in the forest west of the lake. After all that exertion, lying down made me feel a little sick; nearly lost the dinner.

Music running through my head today: When Drunks Go Bad (Austin Lounge Lizards); Crucifixion (Phil Ochs); Highway Cafe Of The Damned (Austin Lounge Lizards).

Monday 31 July: (Peninsula Lake to Macomb Ridge)

Returned to the Peninsula Lake outflow, crossed back over, and headed east along the rocky slabs — there are several very nice-looking camp sites along here. There's a long, rock peninsula that nearly splits Peninsula Lake in half. But ... we had more climbing to do. We CLIMBed before breakfast (up from Peninsula Lake)

, to pretty Upper Peninsula Lake. Made our way around it and then CLIMBed, still before breakfast (ever more slowly, as my energy was at a very low ebb), to the exposed ridge between Haystack and Schofield Peaks. No stomach for peak-bagging, too tired. But we did get some photos of each other standing in the small snowfield just past the ridge.

There followed an easy but long descent across open rock benches with a few scattered trees and bushes, down towards Otter Lake. (It's odd: it has two outlets, one into Falls Creek, and one into Frog Creek. Rested near the lake, and after a bit of confusion about the best route past it, we got up on a bench east of the lake, and found our way past.

Then a longer, steeper and more forested descent ... losing all that altitude ... led us finally to the PCT near Falls Creek. Ah, a trail again! More urgently: a cool stream. Off with the boots, rested and refreshed the feet. Then, we took the inviting, well-marked, smooth TRAIL down along Falls Creek, toward Wilmer Lake. (Some maps and guidebooks write "Wilma Lake", but the metal signs out there say "Wilmer".) The trail sorta loops around below, and then turns east toward the lake. There's a rock slope on the north side, and reeds along much of the south side, where the trail skirts the lake...

Oso was hot this afternoon, so he decided to head over the ridge, and on down to the Lake-with-grassy-edges, to sit in the water, cool off a bit, and (not very energetically) look for some fish. He'd almost gotten cooled off and relaxed enough, when the scant breeze brought him the faint scent of some of those two-legged vermin. Two of them, along with the weird cacophony of exotic odors that they usually bring. Many breaths later, he started to hear their normal "quiet" creaking and stomping, and then, still later, he saw them at the far end of the lake. Osoma had always warned him to stay away from those loud stinkers, but it was so hot. Oso stayed in the water, staring at the critters, hoping they'd just go away. Finally, they seemed to notice him; they stopped for some time. Then they started making even more noise (as if he couldn't already smell them!) and moved in Oso's direction.
"Drat! Guess I oughtta get out of the water and go find some shade to hide in," he thought.
He clambered up the bank, and then walked along the dirtpath for a bit, but the vermin came along that same way, still raising their redundant racket. Oso climbed along a bit, then left the dirtpath to ascend the ridge. Found a big, cool boulder with some shade to hide in, just long enough for the fragrant noisemakers to pass by.
Oso waited a few breaths, to be safe, then ...
"Ah, back into the water."

Monday (cont.)

We were also feeling the heat, so once we got past the lake and decided that the bear wasn't interested in us, we climbed up a quarter mile or so, then I took a very long rest/nap a bit above the lake, while Turly climbed on ahead to filter some water. When I got moving again, I was surprised to get up the next climb as easily as I did. We skipped a couple of small lakes, thinking to go for water at Tilden Creek, a few hundred yards farther. YECCH! That stretch of Tilden Creek, that part of that summer, was just a series of stagnant, mosquito-ridden ponds. Turly went back to filter some water from the closer of those two small lakes. A very brief, light rain passed through.

Then, some more gentle climbing led on up Macomb Ridge. We had dinner about 2/3 of the way up, then pressed on. Just past the top, we found a pretty (though a bit rocky) campsite. Was a bit tricky to set up my tarp. Still with too much food, Turly hung the extra stuff from a rock face. I slept deeply that night.

Tuesday 1 August: (Macomb Ridge to Benson Lake)

Started down the scenic descent into Kerrick Canyon. Great first glimpses of Piute Mountain

, our most prominent landmark for the next two days. Late this morning, we saw our first other human since Sunday morning. Imagine that: 48 hours, in YOSEMITE, in JULY/AUGUST, without seeing another (human) soul. This was one guy on a horse, leading five other (pack) horses up the trail. A bit after we reached the bottom of the canyon, we encountered a large CCC camp and saw quite a few other folk there. It was pretty warm by that time, so I took off my boots, and managed to make it take five trips across Rancheria Creek to get all my stuff across.

The long climb up Kerrick Canyon starts gradually, and climbs gently, near the creek, until it hits the face of a steep, cross- canyon moraine. Climbs more steeply for a bit, and reaches a trail junction. Going north would mean continuing up along Rancheria Creek, to some of the Park's edges, either to Kerrick Meadow and Buckeye Pass, or to Rock Island Pass, Snow Lake, and Crown Lake. But we do a switchback, and climb out of Kerrick Canyon, to Seavey Pass (9200 feet or so elevation). It had been getting overcast, and by the time we reached Seavey Pass, it was raining. I got out my trashbag-like rain poncho.

Just past Seavey Pass, there is a quite beautiful meadow that we just looked at for a while. We saw a group of backpackers coming the other way; saw an eagle; scared up three grouse; heard plenty of thunder.

Next, we drop steeply: 1400 feet in three and a half trail miles. Seemed steeper and longer to me. Somewhere along that descent, the rain stopped. The trail drops into a damp, forested area northeast of Benson Lake. Lots of water-loving wildflowers in here: lilies, foxglove et al., and a lot fewer mosquitoes than I expected, but more than Turly wanted to see. We admired the views; Benson Lake is quite beautiful, with Piute Mountain's southeast ribs rising steeply out of it, and a big, wide sand beach (aka "The Riviera") along the northeast shore.

Did some camp chores — set up tent and tarp; wash clothes (they didn't dry); repair feet (I had three blisters now); cook and eat dinner, etc.

Several parties were camped along "the Riviera". I chatted briefly with a PCT thru-hiker who had the same kind of tarp that I did — but he had it set up 90 degrees off from how I set mine up, and inside out. Weird what long-distance hiking does to one's mind. Another group was in the middle of their trip from Castle Crags (near Shasta) to Mount Whitney.

About six pm, I got into my bathing suit and went for a swim in the lake. Very refreshing.

Music running through my head today: Benson, Arizona (from the movie "Dark Star"); Brave Sir Robin (Neil Innes; from MP&THG)

Wednesday 2 August: (Benson Lake to upper Matterhorn Canyon Jct)

Started the day feeling great, rested and refreshed. The climb ahead of us was from 7800 feet at Benson Lake, up to Benson Pass, at 10150. 2300 feet of climbing. We made good time for the first 500 to 1000 feet up the rocky, forested canyon. As the trail hits the head of the canyon, it steepens and I slowed down, but not enough. As we got to the junction with the second trail south into Rodgers Canyon, I was feeling really poor. We rested for a while; I got sick. We rested a half hour or more; three couples passed by us going our direction. After the break, I felt somewhat better and we continued the climb. Turly took the bear canister. The next section is actually pretty mild, with great views of a waterfall and the granite cliffs west of Smedberg Lake, which we encountered soon enough. Smedberg Lake is another very pretty lake, with a few little islands.

There's a flat, meadowy area between the trail and the lake; a sign on it is printed in lettering so small that you have to walk off the trail over some of the meadow to see it. The sign said "STAY ON TRAIL. AREA CLOSED FOR REVEGETATION", or words to that effect.

Above Smedberg Lake, the trail climbs gently to a large meadow, crosses it, then steepens as it makes the last pushes up to Benson Pass. Saw some more backpackers along here; got one of them to take our picture with Piute Peak in the background. A final bit of climbing brought us to Benson Pass at about 3pm. This is the highest spot on the Pacific Crest Trail that's between Lyell Canyon and the Sonora pass area, and the signs there at the pass don't even say BENSON PASS!! We took some pix anyway. Turly had never been at that high an altitude before, except in an airplane.

As we descended into Wilson Canyon, we stopped at a pretty little meadow for a bit. A bit farther down, we stopped for dinner (Miso soup and Ak-mak crackers) about 5:30pm. Wilson Canyon is a classic hanging valley, with its mouth halfway up the side of Matterhorn Canyon. So, the trail steepens as you drop from Wilson down into Matterhorn, and there are good views of Matterhorn Canyon's lazy, S-curving creek.

The hike upstream in Matterhorn Canyon was pretty flat and went pretty fast. We got up to the junction with tomorrow's trail, and set up in a very comfortable campsite between that junction and the creek. Hung some clothes up from the tarp's ridgeline, to dry, despite the drizzly afternoon weather.

Music: Laura Love's "This Place I Love" (sister, bring my hat and coat and gloves to me ...)

Thursday 3 August: (upper Matterhorn Canyon Jct to Glen Aulin)

I awoke to hear rain on the tarp. Still not quite trusting the whole tarp idea, I wondered just how wet this rain had made all of my stuff. Turned out not to be a problem, nothing was wet. Filtered some water and started out trek up out of Matterhorn Canyon, as the rain continued off and on (as it did most of the day). Breakfast (oatmeal and tea) was halfway up the hill, with a nice view back toward Wilson Creek's hanging valley.

We climbed up to the ridge and then along it a bit, to Miller Lake, up a nameless canyon and then steeply down to Spiller Creek. I don't know how Spiller Creek really got its name, but I like to think it has to do with this pretty section where it's flowing across flat slabs of granite, with the occasional three- to six-inch dropoff, where the water Spills onto the next slab.

Along this section, we saw a couple of equestrian PCT trailworkers who looked like they had earned their ride. Their long leather coats made them look like "Marlboro Men".

Spiller Creek is another hanging canyon, as it drops into Virginia Canyon. The trip's most exciting creek crossing was here, over what the book calls "powerful Return Creek": We climbed over a rock that was lodged just above a gnarly- looking eight-foot waterfall.

As we climbed on up to the ridge, the day cleared up some; we passed the McCabe Lakes turnoff and then started the very long and gradual descent to and through the great, miles-long meadow of upper Cold Canyon. Had a pleasant stroll in the afternoon sun, all down along this meadow.

Below the meadow, the trail steepens, and the weather turned wetter: before we got down to Glen Aulin, it had become a fairly intense (by California standards) lightning, thunder, and hail storm. (We heard later that this storm had been much worse up at Tuolomne Meadows, a thousand feet higher.)

Not long after we reached Glen Aulin, the rain and hail abated, and we got ready to set up camp. The rainstorm had provided us the advantage of knowing by inspection where the water would flow, sparing us the fate of the unfortunate folks in the next tent over, who had to pull out their sleeping bags and try to dry them in the one remaining hour of light.

It was a pretty loud, crowded campground — this was the only place we had had to camp anywhere near anyone else. There were several small groups, and one group of about a dozen 11- or 12-year old girl (scouts or campfire or ?), who were set up under a very large tarp. At my site, this was the first time I needed to rig up the tarp before laying out the groundcloth. We had a tasty spicy chicken dinner and tea, and finally finished off the third-of-a-liter of alcohol fuel that I had brought.

Turly and I climbed up to the top of the rock behind the Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp, and took some photos of the White Cascade, some photos down canyon, and then scrambled down, crossed the bridge (what a luxury!) over the Tuolomne River, to watch an awesome sunset.

Just a bit past dark, a camp bear came by to look for some food. Apparently the dozen girl scouts' leader told them to make some noise. As Turly put it, the ululation was bone- chilling; he thought it was the voice of a banshee, and that his time had come.

Five or ten minutes later, we heard the campers across the creek making a big racket; that must've been the next site on that bear's rounds.

Music: Greg Greenway, David Buskin, Buddy Mondlock, Lou and Peter Berryman

Friday 4 August: (Glen Aulin to Tuolomne Meadows)

An easy four miles today ... starts with a bit of gentle climbing along the cascades of the Tuolomne River, then pretty flat the rest of the way. Some of the shadier spots along here still had six- to eight-inch deep piles of hail.

Uneventful walk back to the Tuolomne Meadows campground, except for running into Kristen who works at Apple. Then: BURGERS! BEERS! WOO HOO!

A couple at the backpacker section of the T.M. campground recognized us (they had passed us on Wednesday or Thursday) and told us about their "fun" experience with that hailstorm up on Tuolomne Meadows. Apparently the rangers had opened Parson's Cabin and built a fire there, to help out hikers that were stranded by the storm's intensity, and unprepared for how cold it was. They said that the hail was knee-deep in places.

We went to a very silly ranger-led campfire talk about bears.

Saturday 5 August: (YART"S")

YARTS — the "S" should stand for "Screwed-up", not "System". The east-side folks are headquartered at Mammoth. Now, Mammoth is a small-town, destination resort, surrounded by a whole lotta nothing. Unfortunately, this means that many of the folks who live there do not really quite believe that any other place in the world exists. So the YARTS folks over there know absolutely nothing about the YARTS folks that handle the west side of Yosemite.

Spent much of the morning waiting for the YARTS bus, with a couple of characters: an eccentric older gentleman from Ohio, who had lost his food to a bear earlier that week, up in Lyell Canyon above and southeast of Tuolomne Meadows; and a recently-graduated Israeli computer science student who had worked for a couple of years and then decided to tour the world.

Anyway, the YARTS bus took us down to Yosemite Valley, where we encountered the typical August Saturday hordes of Yosemite Valley tourons. So Turly got to see the whole range from the quiet peace of earlier in the week, to the heat, bustle, and noise of the Big Crowds. The other YARTS bus took us right down to Coulterville, where I retrieved my car and we headed back west into the sunset.

Lessons for next time:

Lose the Gaz stove; bring even less food, with an emphasis on WET food, like soups; go where there are no bears; go on more training hikes to get into better shape; make a stronger effort not to bring more food than will fit in your bear box.