effects of altitude sickness, so we had caffiene-free tea with breakfast and were already drinking plenty of water to top-off our tanks before we began. Marion stepped on a scale wearing her pack and decided to remove a few more items of clothing from it. As our car was parked half a mile away, she put the clothing in a bag, wrote her name on it and stashed it in a bear-box at the lodge. Lisa came out with our bag lunches, we each collected one and packed it away, and we were off! Our first day was a 8.5 mile hike to Vogelsang camp. We would be climbing from 8,500 elevation to 10,300, so we knew it would be a day of steady climbing. Our hike was taking us up Rafferty creek, so much of our hike was along a beautiful water course, sometimes spreading out into peaceful streams and other times gathering together to rush over cascades.
Lisa stopped the group at a bridge less than a mile into the trip and had us remove our packs for introductions. We each shared our fears and hopes for the trip with the others. Lisa also had us promise not to discuss our jobs with the group, urging us to leave our work-a-day lives behind and immerse ourselves in the here-and-now of our experience instead.
Lisa also stopped frequently during the day to point out to us details about the wilderness we hiked through. That first day she showed us how to identify the Lodgepole pine (2 needle bunches, which form a "L" for Lodgepole), and pointed out how some trees twisted as they grew while on others you could see the grain of wood grew straight. I feel sorry for those hikers not lucky enough to have a ranger lead their group; I might have walked through the meadows of wildflowers and enjoyed their beauty, but Lisa identified the different flowers that we saw and explained interesting facts about them that I would have never known. Not only did she make us "stop and smell the roses", sometimes she made us taste them, too. She would pinch off some wild mountain onion and let us enjoy the wild chive flavor, or taste the citrus-y taste of a certain kind of pine tree. She was always willing to answer any question from the group, sometimes consulting a field guide to identify a particular flower or bird seen along the trail.Lunch was usually spent at a spot with water access where we could remove our boots to cool our feet, and where we could pump water through a filter to refill our hydration packs. We would stop for an hour to relax, enjoy our sack lunch, and then Lisa would give an interpretive lesson. That first day our lesson was on why those darn Lodgepole pines grew twisty some times. She also talked a little about the lichen we saw on the shaded rocks at our lunch spot.
After lunch we hike out of the trees into a long narrow meadow. This was Tuolumne Pass, and Lisa explained that a pass isn't always on the top of some steep ridge, but is defined as the dividing point between two watersheds. In this case she pointed out a small pond that we passed in the meadow as being the place where water drains off to the Tuolumne River on one side and to the Merced River on the other. Up ahead on the trail we could see Mounts Vogelsang and Fletcher getting nearer as we hike towards them, our destination for that first day. These high-country meadows were encountered many times along our trip, and each one was more beautiful than the one before. Many of them looked like they were golf courses designed by Arnold Palmer, complete with water features and sand traps set against the back drop of the rugged granite mountains hemming them in on each side. They never failed to take my breath away when we came upon a new meadow, and we never grew tired of hiking across them in the deep ruts that previous hikers had worn into the rich peat.
The last mile that first day had us hiking steep switchbacks up out of the meadow to Vogelsang camp at the base of Fletcher. That first day we were still getting used to the altitude, and we felt every bit of it as we hiked above 10,000 feet to the highest point on our trail. On reaching camp we enjoyed some luke-warm lemonade that tasted like sweet, sweet nectar after about 7 hours on the trail. We got our tent assignments at the camp office and then dropped off our packs and changed out of our hiking shoes into some Crocs. We headed down to the creek that runs beside our camp to cool our swelling and sweating feet. Lisa had offered to take anyone who was interested on a little side-trip to see a nearby lake, but Marion and I opted for an hour-long nap in our tent instead.A little about our accomodations. This is "glam-packing". Every night we stayed at one of these semi-permanent high sierra camps, equipped with drinkable water spouts where you could safely fill your hydration packs, clean and private toilet facilities, hot meals served at your table every morning and evening, and sturdy canvas-sided tents on a foundation. The tents had actual beds with a mattress, and were covered with 2 or 3 army-surplus woolen blankets as well as another comforter on top. For us lucky back-packers who get to stay here, that means we did not need to carry a sleeping bag, bed roll, camp stove and fuel, or food. We did need to carry a sleep sack, basically a cotton sheet sewn into a sleeping bag shape that you would sleep within to protect your skin from those scratchy
woolen blankets, and to protect those blankets from the stink and sweat of you. Additionally, the tents had a small wood burning stove inside, and a small supply of the most expensive fire wood you will ever burn. All of the supplies for these camps are packed up daily by mules from civilization at a cost of about $3 per pound. Normally, the tents have 4 beds and you can expect to be sharing your sleeping space with strangers, but Marion and I lucked out that first night and got the honeymoon suite, a cabin with only 2 beds. We were way too tired to take advantage of our situation.At dinner that first night our whole group sat together. There was Sherrill and Jim Hanley from the Sacramento area. The most fashionable members of our group, they somehow managed to wear coordinated collared shirts throughout most of the trip. Sharon Wilcox was travelling alone on this trip, but not as alone as she could have been; The previous summer she hiked alone on an unguided trip between the high sierra camps, and she was enjoying this trip as part of a group. Lastly, there were the Tozer's from Great Britain. Graeme and Jane had flown over from England with their 11-year-old daughter, Vicki, only a few days before our trip began and were still dealing with jet-lag in addition to the altitude and exertion. Counting Marion and me, that made our group only 8. Ranger Lisa had never led a group of less than a dozen and said that 14 or 15 was not uncommon, so we were lucky to be in a group where we would get to know each other so well.
Dinner that night was halibut topped with bleu cheese and fresh dill, served with a rice pilaf, steamed squash and "Kev's Kornbread". Fully half of our group, the Tozers and Sherrill, were vegetarians, but each of the camps did a very nice job of accomodating them. While I was enjoying the cornbread I bit into a hard, oddly shaped object inside of it. Reaching into my mouth I pulled out a piece of someone's dental work, a gold crown! Ewwww! Quickly taking inventory of my own mouth with my tongue and then with a finger, I didn't feel anything missing in there. I got a sick feeling as I realized that this crown had spent years in someone's mouth and now it had been in mine for a while. I brought the crown to the Tom, the camp manager and asked him if anyone was missing some dental work. How about Kev? No, he said, Kev wasn't even here. He had hiked down to Tuolumne that afternoon. Maybe for some emergency dental work, I wondered? Knowing that whoever had lost the crown would be grateful to get it back I left it with Tom, who commented that if nothing else the gold was certainly worth some money.
That evening Lisa led a fireless campfire for all of those staying at Vogelsang. At over 10,000 feet, we were above the tree line and not allowed to have a campfire, but Lisa invited all of those staying at the camp to meet on an open slab of granite at 9pm for an astronomy presentation. As we lay on our backs looking up at the night sky she used a small argon laser to trace out the constellations for us, telling us stories and legends about the constellations we could see. If you think you've seen a wonderful sky before, try seeing it on a crystal-clear night at 10,000 feet elevation with no lights within 10 miles of you. That night will live with me for a long time.
After dinner Marion and I retired to our tent for the night. We started up our wood burning stove within minutes, and then I loaded a second piece of wood into it before damping it down for the evening, hoping it would warm us all night. Boy, did it ever! Within 15 minutes it got up to 90 degrees inside our tent and Marion and I were stripping off blankets and clothes and opening the door to our cabin to let in some cool air. The fire did last past 4 the next morning and we slept a very comfortable night our first night on our adventure.
Continued in High Sierra Loop Trail #3, Vogelsang to Merced Lake
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