trail

The sun was on the horizon as we got the ground cloth down and the tent strung out to its poles, ready for the rainfly.

As I waited for Matt to take the fly from its bag, three women walked by on the trail about 10 yards from us. It was a strange look they gave us, one a wealthy socialite might give to a homeless man on the street, and despite our wave of hello, they scurried down the trail, eager to leave our presence.

We finished staking out the tent and once my things were inside, the sun was almost gone and burly clouds were rushing to cloak the lake’s western edge.

“Please don’t be the morning.  Please don’t be the morning.” 

This was my mantra as dawn broke and we began to get up for the day. Thirty-one degrees in the tent, which meant colder outside, which meant my pants would feel like long icicles.

While I have tried and failed in the past, I never tire of attempting to hold the sleeping bag cinched to my nose while still putting on my clothes, thereby losing little of the precious heat in the bag. However, I ultimately surrender to limited space and time, unzipping the bag to let the icicles in. 

Ahhhh, morning with the mosquitos (may they perpetually drive with the right turn signal on and their gas door open).

Sometimes it is impossible to do anything without swatting wildly at any exposed, or even partially exposed portion of skin because of the little buggers, and this morning was no different.

While the forest fires raging throughout the West are no doubt littering the sky with greasy yellow smoke, they do have the inverse benefit of providing us with colorful sunrises.

I woke early for no good reason (especially since I was dreaming about being on a debate team with Max Fischer of “Rushmore,” and we were crushing our Sharpton/O’Reilly opposition) to see another glorious sunrise in the making.

While the forest fires raging throughout the West are no doubt littering the sky with greasy yellow smoke, they do have the inverse benefit of providing us with colorful sunrises.

I woke early for no good reason (especially since I was dreaming about being on a debate team with Max Fischer of “Rushmore,” and we were crushing our Sharpton/O’Reilly opposition) to see another glorious sunrise in the making.

I had been nestled in my sleping bag for a little while, waiting for night to fall, when the chills began.

For the rest of the night I drifted through a bizarre scene of hallucinations, dry heaving, stomach cramps and chills and sweats. 

Something was obviously wrong, and the longer it went, the more obvious the culprit seemed to me:  Bad salami or cheese.

By morning, about 5:30 a.m., when I couldn’t wait for Matt any longer, I let him know things were not good. After some more retching, we packed up and began down the hill into Evolution Basin.

This morning the lakes added to the chill in the air and we broke camp quickly to warm up.

We had camped a quarter-mile from the lakes’ outlet and the trail began another long downhill stretch, running along the now-frothing Palisade Creek to the head of another long valley.

Stopping on a stone outcropping to admire the view, we were treated to the sunrise over the glaciated valley with steep walls and thick forest.

The trail began switching back and forth to get down to the valley floor, passing the gushing waterfall and a riot of blooming flowers to lower us into the mixed forest, on our way to Deer Meadow.

Having camped in a slightly damp and grassy area, we awoke to the sound of buzzing death: Mosquitos, again.

The little beasts drove us from our camp and chased us quite a ways up the pass. Pinchot Pass (12,130 feet) wasn’t too difficult as it had little snow and the day was still somewhat cool.

Similar to the other passes, the area became moonlike above the treeline, with only jagged grey spires of rock adorned with patches of snow to decorate the area.

Summiting Pinchot Pass gave us a look at the next valley we were to cross, quite similat to the one we’d just come out of: High alpine lakes at first, then, as the elevation dropped into a river-carved canyon, meadows and then a thick forest at the bottom. 

Back on the trail after Bishop, we quickly scrambled up Kearsarge to meet the sunset, and cooking dinner on the trail halfway down the western face proved to be a good idea.

The setting sun’s light bathed the high valley in warm tones and the onset of dusky, cool air got us moving again, ready to set camp and hit the sack.

A final note of the day: when attempting to hang food over a tree branch, make sure the rope you are using is long enough or the rock you have attached will come down very quickly and likely in your vicinity.

Dear readers (or reader…Hi Mom, thanks for listening!),

Some commenters have asked about the delay in getting blog entries posted, so I’ll cover exactly how the whole process works. 

First, Matt and I hike through extremely dangerous areas, fighting bears and eating junk food until the end of the day. 

I then make notes on my pocketmail device about the day (e.g. “killed one bear in hand-to-paw combat; walked up a mountain; slew a cyclops; walked down the mountain”).