Right, so I got five hours of sleep before I packed up my
stuff this morning and went to Yosemite Village to get on the Hiker’s Bus to
Tuolumne. I have a grievance with the use of the word “hiker” here. This bus
gets up to Tuolumne around 10:30 and leaves again at 2:00. What decent hike can
be done in 3.5 hours? It’s really setting me up for a loss. I’m pretty sure
this is why most people call it the “backpacker’s bus” instead (everyone but me
and two other people were backpackers getting dropped off at their stops). So
this year, Aramark decided to make this a guided tour and charge people for the
use of this bus. Round-trip to Tuolumne from the Valley is $23 ($11.50 for
employees). Lucky for me, I happen to know the bus driver and she said that she
gets employees comp tickets from the ticket agent at the Lodge. So I got to go
for free. :) I’m special. (Thanks Stephanie!)
from Olmstead Point
Tenaya Lake
Pothole Dome
So I get up there and I have her drop me off at the
Visitor’s Center, the closest place to the Glen Aulin Trailhead. Now, it’s
10:20 and the trail’s about 12 miles round-trip and I’m supposed to be back at
2:00, so I have to average 18 min. per mile. Doable, but not enjoyable—which is
why I spent the past day brainstorming ways to get back to the valley after the
bus leaves.
Plan A—take bus back at 2:00—highly unlikely
Plan B—run into someone I know with a vehicle to take me
back
Plan C—find Andrew, a coworker camping near Vogelsang and
have him bring me back Saturday night
Plan D—find Tommy, a former coworker who works somewhere
doing something and ask him to let me sleep on the floor
Plan E—ask super terrifically nicely at the Lodge or one of
the High Sierra Camps if they’ll let me crash somewhere
Plan F—sleep on the ground outside, pray I don’t freeze to
death, return in the morning
Plan G—attempt to hike back via Cloud’s Rest—additional ~22
miles from Glen Aulin HSC
Plan H—find the people that Miles said play ultimate up near
Tenaya on Fridays and ride back with them
Plan I—Plan TBD
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
Plan J—Hitch-hike back—promised solid majority of my close
relatives that I wouldn’t hitch-hike again, even though this is the option
almost everyone told me to do
Plan K—Actually pay for a room somewhere—Do I look rich to
you? No.
So I’ll leave you with those lovely options and keep you
guessing (or reading, whichever) to find out what I did. Unless you’re smart
and you already figured it out.
First of all, Tuolumne is often referred to as a park of its
own. The Tuolumne Meadows are just so different from Yosemite Valley. They’re
both spectacular in their owns ways. Tuolumne is also about 4000 feet higher in
elevation than the valley, so prepare your lungs. Now that I’ve been there, I
would have to agree with the people who say they’re nothing alike. But I love
it. I couldn’t stop taking picture of everything. Everywhere I turned, it was
gorgeous and I wanted to remember it all. Remember when I told you what to do
if you only have one day in Yosemite? Well if you have two days—spend your
second day here. Don’t do what I did of course—that would be crazy. Take the
Backpacker’s Bus up to Tuolumne, ride the free shuttle around to the different
stops, and explore. Then get your butt back on the bus at 2:00.
The hike to Glen Aulin was beautiful. I expected nothing
less once I got up there. It was about six miles from the Visitor Center
parking lot to the bottom of White Cascade/the Glen Aulin HSC. I had never been
to a High Sierra Camp, so I decided to go check this one out while I was there.
They’re available by reservation only, and from what I hear, you should do that
early. Breakfast and supper are included in your reservation price, and the
menu for tonight looked pretty darn fantastic. I ate my pb&j at the base of
White Cascade Falls. Not a bad view for lunch. ;) When I got there, it was
12:30, so if I had really wanted to make it back by 2:00, I probably could have
trail run parts of it and gotten there. But what’s the fun in that?
Tuolumne Falls
...pictures are hard
White Cascade Falls
Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp--at the base of White Cascade Falls
Store/Kitchen--tonight was Pork Night with homemade bread, soup, salad, and dessert. Mouth currently watering.
Glen Aulin HSC tent cabins
Instead, on one of the signs I had passed, there was a route
to Yosemite Valley past Tenaya Lake via the Murphy Creek Trail and then via the
Snow Creek Trail to Mirror Lake. “Only” 18 more miles. The three people in the
store (one of whom was a former Curry Village Lifeguard a couple seasons ago)
thought I was nuts to start that ~1:15…but what the heck, why not? So naturally
I went with Plan TBD and didn’t impose on any of my friends/acquaintances/total
strangers. If you guessed I would pick that one, congrats, maybe you know me or
something.
At that point I chose to listen to my feel good/pick me up
music—the playlist is literally named “Positive.” I hand-picked each of the
songs because I felt they had a positive message, and when you’re starting 18
miles after 1:00 in the afternoon, you need your mental game to be on point. My
two go-to songs are on this playlist—You Are Loved by Stars Go Dim and Thrive
by Casting Crowns. If you’ve never heard them before, you should definitely
listen to them. During the school year when I’m sulking because of work or
practice or I just got an A- on a test :) … there’s a good chance that I’ll
listen to one of these songs because they’re so awesome. I’m not usually much
for recent music, oldies but goodies all the way, but these are exceptions. Another
good one for hiking (or actually anything challenging) is Limitless by Colton
Dixon. I could really go on and on about music because music is so awesome…but
I’ll continue with the day.
I really wanted to get back before dark because I only
packed a flashlight. I still need to take everyone’s advice and buy a
headlamp—I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Starting my hike so late in
the day, at 10:20, really just threw me off. Usually for a 20-30 mile hike, I’m
almost halfway done by the time I eat lunch. Today I had about 6 miles done and
three times that more to go. Yuck.
It was also right about after lunch that mosquitoes kept
landing on me. I became a slapping machine, but those things were everywhere. I
contemplated putting my orange raincoat on, but I was already extremely warm
and didn’t really want to do that. I was afraid it would make me drink more
water, and I was trying to limit myself on that for a few reasons—1) I didn’t
want to have to pee all the time. 2) I didn’t want to stop to drink it. 3) I
had cottonmouth all day today and it was driving me nuts, so I was having a
hard time rationing it out so that I’d have some left at the end. No need to
add to the thirst. (The past couple days at work, I’ve been drinking over 2
gallons of water. It is so toasty warm.) I tried leaving the remains of the
mosquitoes on my skin as a sign to their counterparts what would happen if they
landed there. Those little kamikazes didn’t take my hint, and soon I had to
brush them all off again because I felt disgusting. Darn mosquitoes—life
lesson: bring bug spray with you up to the high country because there’s so much
water.
Tenaya Lake--lots of people go swimming and floating here--there are many picnic areas and beaches
Speaking of water, like I needed anything else to slow me
down, there was water covering parts of the trail. Usually, I just hop from
rock to rock or balance on a log to get over. Well, one such trek didn’t go so
great. I typically test my weight on any skinny logs before I put my full
weight on them in case they roll. Well, somehow it didn’t work correctly on
this really super long skinny one (the only available tool to cross), and it
rolled and my entire left shoe went into the muddy water. I was not happy at
all. I went and sat on a rock after I finished crossing and rang my sock out
and tried to beat my shoe. Didn’t work—it was still wet. :( At the point, I
think I had just passed Tenaya Lake, so I probably had 9ish miles left. Bah humbug.
I didn’t like the Snow Creek Trail going down any more than
I had coming up in whenever that was to get to North Dome. It was boring and
not very scenic. Which is why I decided that it would be beneficial to run the
parts that weren’t crazy rocky. There were a few spots up near the beginning,
specifically in the Olmstead Point area where the trail wasn’t marked very
well. I had to keep retracing my steps and looking at it again. There was one
spot that took me almost ten minutes to track down where the trail continued
because it was overgrown by weeds and then just rocks after that. Extremely
frustrating. Dumb trail. Not a fan. Neither were my ankles by that point. They
hated me for making them go down the Snow Creek Trail—the steepest descent to
the valley. I also needed to do it quickly because I was losing light as the
sun set, especially in the wooded area. I ended up getting almost all of the
switchbacks knocked out before I had to turn on my flashlight. After that, it
was just another couple miles to Mirror Lake.
from the Scenic Overlook on the Snow Creek trail, basically right below Olmstead Point
Half Dome around sunset on the way down
By the time I got to the edge of Mirror Lake, it was a
little after 9:15. I’m not extremely familiar with the trail back to the
Ahwahnee from there, but I remembered that it’s pretty rocky. I didn’t really
feel like doing that with my flashlight—it makes me go so slow. I hate going
slow. So instead, I went another 1.8 miles over to Curry Village to get………you
guessed it—ice cream before they closed at 10:00. Always thinking with my stomach. I was still super thirsty, so
I got a shake (Cookie Dough, one of the special flavors for this weekend, and
Chocolate), and one of my friends that works there charged me exactly $0.
Thanks Tom! The guys that work there (Tom, Sam, and Neil/Nick?) are all super
nice. The one girl is okay. The other girl is a pain in the butt. Coincidentally
(or not), she happens to now be dating the coworker that I just helped get
transferred to the Lodge Pool because they lost one and we had an extra. Who to
send? The weakest link…the one that doesn’t do anything—sucks at guarding,
sucks at cleaning, argues with everything I say (even though I’m 100% right),
and breaks half of the rules that we, as lifeguards, are required to follow—no
eating on the pool deck, don’t use your cell phone, no reading, etc. Idiot. So
glad he’s gone now. Interestingly enough, he now becomes Conor’s roommate
Ryan’s problem, since Ryan is the lead lifeguard over at the Lodge. (Conor—HP,
Connor—Lifeguard——sorry if it’s confusing for you.)
I took the bus back to my tent at the Ahwahnee because I was
tired of walking, so that puts my total around 25.5 miles for the day. So
basically tomorrow will be a lazy day. ;) I like those days. After eating some
leftovers, guzzling an excessive amount of water, and typing this up—I’m now
all set to go to bed. Unfortunately it’s no longer Friday; it’s 1:45 in the
morning. Bah humbug.
Gorgeous rocky waterfall!!!
ReplyDelete