Northward Bound

We are leaving Tahoe after three full days of rest. Rumour tells us that we only have 80 more miles of snow left. WooHoo!

Next stop is Sierra City. We probably won't have service there and not perhaps for another week or two but we will try to write more often, if for no other reason than to provide more details.

In Tahoe... safe and repairing bruised bodies

How do I even begin describing what we have gone through? On a normal year things are challenging. Words for this year would be stuff like harrowing, brutal, intense and relentless.

The John Muir Trail section turned out to be not so difficult. Yeah there was more snow, but it affected us on the approaches to the passes, making them longer. What we weren't prepared for was the amazing amount of snow in Northern Yosemite and further. These were all sections where we encountered minimal snow in 2006. Indeed it seemed fairly minimal when we left Tuolumne Meadows.

But about 10 miles in the snow kicked in. It showed up in any forested areas with northern exposure above 8000 feet. Anything above 9000 feet had complete snow coverage on average two feet deep.

The snow makes you slower as I have already mentioned. It is also hard on your body. You are constantly breaking with your knees and falling hard several times a day. We have been using ibuprofen in small but constant doses. Our legs are covered in scrapes and cuts.

We have learned to abandon the trail and focus on he route instead. Map and compass are our friends. At a point it became clear that the trail was buried, the map would come out. First we figure out where we are. Then we figure out where we are headed. Then we gauge the terrain to figure out the least difficult way to get there. One of the benefits of snow travel is being able to choose your own route. It generally will follow the trail but not always. If the trail contours up or down on a slope we will often steer around the section, preferring to gain/lose the elevation in areas where we can move straight up/down the slope. We cut switchbacks as a rule.

It is always a good feeling to run into the trail after an extended chunk of bushwhacking. Sometimes it would appear for a mere instant, a clear indicator of good navigation. Other times entire patches of trail turn up and we unexpectedly get trail tread for a bit. Many times the trail is right next to us but we can't use it because it has become a stream or a mudhole.

The stream crossings deserve mention. They got more extreme and abundant in northern Yosemite. In fact, the section was impassable about two weeks before we got there. The Tuolomne river had risen above its footbridge and two weekend backpackers lost their lives trying to cross. The water was below the bridge when we crossed but was still a scary torrent. Most of the other creek crossings had no bridges. We crossed them the old fashioned way. Most were below he waist. One was high enough to force Zm to swim, and me to bounce on tippy toes.

Our schedule put us up front of just about everyone else we had traveled with. Consistency was our main focus, making sure we hiked moderately all day long and took minimal rest days. But since we have taken so many days here in Tahoe, it will be a different trail when we hop on again tomorrow. Racheopod and Gnar were behind us but just pulled in this morning. We will all hit yet another buffet tonight before rolling on.

Some other tidbits:
--- Trail Magic: Three times since Tuolumne, we have had folks unexpectedly show up and give us food. It is a good excuse to take it easy for a few hours. One fellow cooked us burgers, another cooked breakfast.

--- End of the snow: in another 50 miles we expect the snow to largely stop. After that we are back in the high 20's and soon will start doing 30's. It will be clear trail all the way to Canada.

--- The Mars Volta opened for Soungarden last night at an outdoor concert about 500 feet from our motel. We had no clue until we overheard a conversation earlier in the day. We listened from outside the fence. They played for a pathetic 45 minutes but it was still total magic to have run into them.

That is all I have. Journal comes at the expense of sleep and we need as much rest and healing as we can get out there.

I have updated our schedule. Still on track to finish in late September.

Rest in Vermillion Valley Resort

The last ten days of hiking have been the most intense of my entire life. I am not sure how I can even do it justice in the measly 30 minutes allowed to me on this expensive satellite internet connection. Once again I am reduced to bullet points.

• Snow... lots of it. The approaches to the passes were covered with snow. It slowed our progress to 1 mph on the uphill sides. In some places there were four miles of snow before the pass. For the most part the trail was useless to us and we either headed directly to the pass or followed tracks in the snow.
• Sun... WOW! There was no way that we could keep our lips from sunburn. The sun was just too intense in all of those snowy valleys above tree line. Another victim was the bottom of our noses. There was no way we could prevent nasty burning there as well. At the end of the day our eyes hurt from the sun.
• Friends... We caught up to our dear friends Racheopod and Gnar, whom we haven't seen in ~300 miles. We hope that we can stay within a day of them for the rest of this trail.
• Stream crossings... intense. Yesterday we witnessed several hikers get swept off their feet. Zm and I almost lost it as well, an important lesson about picking a better place to cross. Luckily we were supported by another hiker on the far bank that grabbed us before we fell. Our feet are never dry, there is so much water on the trail from the melting snow.
• We radically changed our diet with some plusses and minuses. Good were the drink mixes like coolaid, lemonade and chocolate milk. We had a ton of cheese that we never got sick of. Bad was the cooked breakfast cereal. It disagreed with my digestive system and I am not sure if I can ever have hot mush again in my life. We return to our regular diet from here on out.
• Hikers Bailing... On the first part of the trail we ran into a bunch of hikers that had turned around. They didn't like the snow and stream crossings. Other hikers on the trail bring more stories of folks that have jumped off the trail either temporarily or permanently. The hiker attrition has been amazing this year. It makes us proud to have stuck through it.

Currently we are at Vermillion Valley Resort and the worst of the Sierra is behind us. We still have a few snowy passes and a few more questionable crossings, but nothing of the magnitude we have already faced. Things will stay moderate until we get to Tahoe in about 200 miles. Then things will get easy and stay easy until Washington State.

I wish I could describe this whole thing better. We have been through a ton, but I am out of time. Next update will most likely be from Tahoe. Signal is still impossible to find out here.