High Sierra Loop Trail #1, Getting Ready

This post is way overdue. A month ago Marion and I had the adventure of our lives, spending 5 days hiking in Yosemite's High Sierra back country. I've put off trying to write an account of our journey because it's such a daunting task to try and capture our experience in words when I know that no words will do it justice.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, the following slide-show is worth 107,000. These pictures don't even come close to illustrating the beauty that we saw, but should give you a glimpse of what our trip was like. Special thanks to our hiking-mates, Jim and Sherrill Hanley, Sharon Wilcox, and the Tozer family from Great Britain for allowing me to 'steal' some of their photos for my slide show.



Our trip started on the fifth of July when I checked the website for Yosemite National Park. Marion and I have always loved visiting Yosemite, but have limited our trips there to Yosemite Valley, which we think is the most beautiful place on Earth. Marion's father had told us stories about a series of camps in the high country above the Valley and my research discovered that there were Ranger-led backpack trips between the camps every summer, but that getting reservations for these trips is a difficult proposition. On this early July morning I checked the website and saw that there were some openings for a 5 day guided hike leaving July 30th. I told Marion what I'd found and asked her if she was game to go. She said that if we could get my parents to come and watch the boys for the week we would be gone, she would go. Much to her surprise, a quick call to my parents resulted in a quick answer of YES from them. I called the reservation number and booked our spots on the trip! We were committed.

Now, the reality set in. We had less than a month to prepare and train for 5 days of strenuous hiking at altitude, carrying packs (which neither of us had done before.) I went out and bought packs for us the next day and we both loaded our packs with about 20 pounds of stuff. Our schedules don't allow us the convenience of being free to work-out at the same times, so we both started training seperately. It must have been quite a sight to see Marion and I hiking around Ventura, in our local hillside parks and on our streets, outfitted in our bright orange packs and sporting our new trekking poles. Each weekend we got away for longer hikes in the mountains, sometimes inviting friends to accompany us and carrying their gear for them.

2 days before we were leaving for our trip a fire broke out on the west side of Yosemite, in the Mariposa area. While we confirmed that the fire had not closed the park and would not block our planned route into the park, it made us re-think our plans. We had booked a room in Fresno for Monday night so that we could get up to Tuolumne Meadows early on Tuesday to acclimate to the altitude for a day before we left for our hike on Wednesday. Looking at the map of roads into Yosemite, we realized that it was exactly the same distance (on much easier roads) to enter the park from the east side, which means that we would spend Monday night in Mammoth Lakes, not Fresno. Bonus! Also, Mammoth is 8,500 feet elevation which would give us another half day at altitude to acclimate.

Monday afternoon we kissed our boys goodbye and left them in my parent's care as we set off for Mammoth. We got into town at dinner time and went to an old favorite dining spot of ours, Berger's Burgers. Unfortunately, the Berger family sold the restaurant a few years ago, so it's now just Burgers, but much of the menu was the same and it was a servicable meal.

From Yosemite High Sierra Camps 5 day hike

The next morning, after breakfast at The Stove (which had also changed hands), we were ready to drive off to Tuolumne. Well, almost ready. Marion had been suffering for a week with a mild cold that had got into her ears. At the last minute we decided to visit Mammoth's emergency room to have it looked at. Good thing, too. Turns out Marion had a bit of Strep, so after picking up a course of antibiotics, we were on the road at last.

From Yosemite High Sierra Camps 5 day hike

We got to Tuolumne in just one hour and decide to take a short hike in the meadows to start getting used to the high altitude. We visited Soda Springs and the visitor center and hiked around for a few hours before driving over to The Grill for a bite of lunch. For those of you who have never been to Tuolumne Meadows, The Grill isn't much as far as cuisine or atmosphere, but it's the only game in town and it's always crowded. It's the place to see and be seen, and while in line we talked with two different groups of hikers who had just come off the John Muir Trail, having hiked hundreds of miles over the previous weeks. We were much impressed, and they told us that we would be fine in the back country as long as we had a head net to protect us from the savage swarms of mosquitos they had encountered. Heeding their warning, we set off to buy some for ourselves, but the few stores in Tuolumne were sold-out so we made the half-hour drive down to Lee Vining to buy some. 2 head nets: $6. Driving to and from Lee Vining on Tioga Pass Road: $12 in fuel. Oh well, better safe than sorry.

From Yosemite High Sierra Camps 5 day hike

We checked into our tent cabin for the night and repacked our back packs until we went off for dinner at the lodge. We dined with a couple, both of whom have worked summers in the park for close to 40 years. The man was a rescue ranger, whose job was to ride his horse into the back country to rescue and pack-out hikers who become sick or injured and are unable to get out on their own. Sobering . . . . After dinner we attended a campfire where we met the group that would accompany us on our trip, and we met Lisa Murphy, the ranger who would lead us. She told us what to expect on our trip and urged us to try to keep our packs down to 20 pounds or less. We went back to our tent and repacked our packs once again, searching for items that could be removed.