June 22, 2002
Today was the day for flying and getting all of the parties together. Lori and Carl flew from Green Bay WI to Reno NV. Kay drove to Green Bay from Michigan to leave her kids with Karen Burke (her sister), then drove to Milwaukee and finally flew to Reno NV. John flew from Detroit MI to Reno NV.
John missed his original flight and was able to get a direct flight that got him in earlier than expected. We rented a car, however, because Carl indicated we were arriving at 10:00pm instead of 10:00am we were not able to get a full sized car and had to settle for a midsized car. It worked out OK but Carl did take a fair amount of ribbing.
We had lunch in Reno at a “On the Border” restaurant before arriving to Tuolumne Meadows at 4:45pm where we obtained our trail pass. Finding our backpacking campsite was a breeze and we set up tents. Carl went to the visitors center to meet Tim and Susan who were driving in from Phoenix, AZ. We were supposed to meet at 6:00pm and by 6:30pm Carl left messages and came back to the others. Carl drove back to the visitors center (no luck), found the trailhead to speed things in the morning, and then stopped at the country store. It was now 7:30pm. As Carl was standing in line to buy a “Sunrise High Sierra Camp” patch he saw Tim and Susan driving by slowly looking for us. Just plain lucky we found each other (this was before cell phones).
Tim and Susan had driven into the Valley at 5:00pm but didn’t realize that it was another 1-1.5 hours to Tuolumne Meadows. They had been driving back and forth searching for us. Since everyone was hungry we headed for the Tuolumne Lodge where we were able to get the last table of the evening. The food was decent for being in the middle of nowhere.
June 23, 2002 (First day of hiking)
8:00am – bright, sunny morning with a temperature of 44 degrees at 6:00am. Almost everyone has new great and is experimenting on how to pack. We are close to leaving. Lori called Megan and she was worried about us because Tim and Susan had called her last night. Today is going to be the hardest day with 1500 feet of up and 1500 down and crossing a very wet meadow.
Noon – Lunch at the intersection of our trail and the trail to Cathedral Lakes. This morning was passed Fairview Dome and Cathedral Peak – views were not so stunning. A lot of uphill. Bright, sunny and in the mid 70’s. Everyone on the trail has been friendly and talkative.
Night – We camped right on the edge of Sunrise Mountain.
June 24, 2002 (Second day of hiking)
8:00am – Our walk yesterday PM through Tuolumne Meadows was very brisk! The mosquitoes were terrible. All in all we did 9 miles – really more than we should have – we were all really tired. There was a little disagreement at the end of the day about where to stay, therefore, John and Kay stayed about a ¼ miles further down the trail because Susan and Lori did not want to walk any further.
Supper was a quick affair because of the mosquitoes and we were all in bed at 8:30pm. Carl had a restless night because he was somewhat dehydrated. Morning was uneventful with the normal oatmeal, packing up and swatting at mosquitoes. The views are nice but Carl was anxious to get into the Valley.
8:00pm – We made it to our goal for the day – the last junction before the Half Dome. We walked at a very “restful” pace and made it to our destination around 3:30pm. We spent an hour looking for a better site and, finally, found a good one to basecamp from. We talked to some folks that had just come down from the Half Dome. They indicated it took 2 hours to go up and 1.5 hours to come down. They were in their 50’s – the woman loved it and the man hated it. An interesting item has been the scat we have been seeing on the trail – mainly undigested grass about 3 inches long and 1 inch in diameter.
June 25, 2002 (Day 3 of hiking)
8:00am – We had a bear walk through the camp last night. At midnight Lori started out of the tent to take a nature break – immediately she came flying back into the tent, zipping the door shut saying, “There’s a bear!”. “Oh, good thing you zipped the tent.” replied a sleepy but wide awake Carl. The bear had just finished checking out our food barrels and then sauntered through camp. The bear came to within 6 feet of the tent as he lumbered over to sniff our backpacks before heading for John and Kay’s tent.
No major problems except for Kay not sleeping all night. We were slower getting going than we wanted to be on our hike to Half Dome. We didn’t get started until 9:00am. Kay and Susan decided not to do the major assent to the top. It took the rest of us a total of 2 to 2.5 hours to get to the top. The initial ⅔ of the trail was primarily wide trail with lots of switchbacks. The final third had two distinctly different sections. The first section was a trail made of steps that had been carved and set into the mountain. There were no hand rails and Tim commented, “I don’t think these steps meet building code for rise and run!”. Lori had to overcome her fear and in some sections looked like a crab scrambling uphill. The second section is the one that gets all of the write up and it was by far the most challenging. This section consisted of 2 cables connected to 1 ½ inch pipes that were drilled into the stone and set about 3 feet high and 4 feet apart.
When Carl got to the top his arms were shaking and he thought to himself, “I don’t know if I’m going to make it down!” The views are gorgeous and we all spent an hour on the top. Much to everyone’s relief, coming down was much easier. More like a controlled fall, using ones hands to clamp on the cable to slow or stop the descent.
June 26, 2002
Last day and it is all downhill hiking along the Mist and Vernal Falls.
