Yosemite Backpacking 2019

[Greg]

Day 1 Tuolomne Meadows to Vogelsang Trail Junction

The day started at Yosemite Valley Lodge to pick up DM, Mrs. DM, and Jersey. I got better cell reception in the lobby than I got back in Raymond at my own house. It was good enough to receive an ominous text from DM that said “There’s been a slight change of plans”

Fortunately, it just meant that Mrs. DM and Jersey were taking a bus up to Tuolomne Meadows while DM rode with me. They were afraid that the Queen was dropping me off in her tiny civic and we all wouldn’t fit our gear into her car. I guess I should have been a little clearer about transportation.

DM and I had a great time catching up on the drive up. The last time I was up in Tuolomne, I was still dating Cheryl Zampedri..



We met our other two travelers at the Tuolomne Market. They had taken a tour bus up which stopped every few minutes for sight seeing so were only about five minutes behind them.
We found Mrs. DM getting lunch while Jersey was in getting his meal. At the table next to Mrs. DM were two gentleman who would be classified as homeless anywhere else in the world. But here they were hikers in the middle of a long stretch of hiking. The looked weathered and beaten from the trail. Later, when I took their picture at the trail head, I found out they were in the middle of doing the John Muir Trail. Or JMT as the cool kids call it.

We dropped the car off at the Tuolomne Meadows and headed out. I said a fervent prayer that my car would still start in a week’s time.



On the first day, we hiked almost six miles along the Lyle Fork of the Toulomne river. There were other hikers on the trail, but not many. We passed some horses. The backpack was heavy but not really onerous. I was lulled into the sense that this was going to be easy.



We passed a group of Koreans who looked like they were out for a casual stroll. As I learned from DM, it’s fun to ask people where they were coming from. The women I asked didn’t speak any English but she asked another member of their group. He told me they were coming from Whitney, as in Mt. Whitney. As in 128 miles of hiking. This was the groups seventh day on the trail. I no longer felt as cool as I thought about my backpacking.



We stopped for the night at the fork between the JMT and the trail to Vogelsang High Camp. We found a spot that had been previously used as a camp. There was a nice selection of rocks to sit on. I found a place to hang my water filter. I set up my tent and sleeping bag like a good little camper.

Another hiker came by and asked if he could camp hear us and share our little cooking/seating area. We said sure. He introduced himself as Jason. He’d been on the trail for 21 days. He had started farther south than Whitney. I was exhausted by the 6 miles I had walked to our camp.

I borrowed DM’s stove to make Ramen. The DM crew made chili, way too much chili. I ended up having some Chili, as well. They gave a significant portion of it to Jason.

I don’t know when DM started to suffer from the altitude sickness but you could tell something was off with him. He sat to the side and wasn’t really saying much. I'm sure he loved everybody asking him if he was okay.



Since our camp sat in the bottom of a narrow valley lined with steep hills, the sun went down fast and the temperatures dropped quickly. Jersey spent a lot of time finding pools of sunlight to stand in to keep warm. Because of the dryness of the area and the potential for forest fires, camp fires were prohibited. At about 7, everybody climbed in their tents to keep warm. 

Mrs. DM suggested that Jersey and I share a tent in order to have twice as much body heat warming the tent. Knowing how I sleep, I declined.  I didn’t want to punish Jersey by putting him in a tent with me.

I use the term sleep in the most general of terms. First, it’s 7 o’clock. That’s about two hours earlier than my usual bedtime. I read Gene Wolf’s Night of the Long Sun by the light of my Luci Light. But I didn’t read for long. It occurred to me that if I read at my usual pace, I’d finish the book that night and have nothing to read for the upcoming nights.

I settled in for a long night of trying to fall asleep.