Sierra Mel, Fish Bully and Flip TR

“I usually don't do a trip report but promised I would. I did take some awsome pics with my new digital camera but I don't know how to post them on here (always got a box with a "x"). It was really cool meeting all the TTers I had never before met and re-newing friendships with those I have hiked with. I trust I'll hike with more of you soon.
Please enjoy our trip report below.

Day 1
Fish Bully (my 9-year old son) and I (Flip) arrived at Sierra Mel’s house in Bishop and renewed friendships with Mel and John. It was a beautiful and lazy drive through Yosemite, across Tioga Pass, and down 395. We all went down to La Castina for margaritas and Mexican food. Bought some beer and stayed up late talking.

Day 2
Sierra Mel, Fish Bully and I loaded up our cars and went to Onion Valley campground and found an open site. We had no reservations and I felt lucky that we were able to nab a site. After setting up our tents, we walked around the campground looking for TTers to no avail. We didn’t know exactly who was going to be here tonight and who was coming in tomorrow night. Drank some beer...still no TTers...drank another beer...still no TTers...drank more beer. Fish Bully and I were then walking down to the creek when I noticed a familiar face to my left. It was Robert (Solitary Hiker) sitting there with a young lady and gentleman who were Gemini and WLD. I had seen WLD and Gemini earlier but had no clue they were TT folks. I also understand that Gemini got a unique look at Fish Bully and I apologize for that. He needs to learn to check for a campground restroom before going in the wild. I later learned that WLD had to back out of the trip but still provided logistic support and sacrifices above and beyond. What character!
The rest of the time was spent meeting new TT folks and socializing. At one point, a few TTers were going to hit the sack to get an early start in the morning. At that point, I thought that all the folks were intending to "pee on the fire and call in the dogs". So I said goodbyes and hit the sack myself. But everyone didn’t go to bed early. As I lay in my tent, the talking, laughing, giggling, etc continued and I don’t remember it ever stopping. Extra torch-carring points for all of you. It was great meeting new TT folks and I trust we will hike together soon. I’m sure it would be a blast hiking with all of you.

Day 3
Went back to Sierra Mel’s house in Bishop and got all our gear ready. For those of you who have been on a llama trip, you know the drill. We packed all the saddles and panniers, and basically got all our gear together and ready to hit the trail tomorrow. This is the first trip with Mel in which we didn’t take any beer. The last trip we went on we packed a case of beer each! I could have sold the carbonated cocktail for $5 a can to a bunch of rowdy runaway hikers with drooling tongues. This time I took something along the line of Mel’s "rocket fuel", oh, and some wine (merlot for having with the fish dinners in which I go all out). Tomorrow we hit the trail!

Day 4
John takes us to the trailhead at Reds Meadow. And we start getting ready. Given the previous day’s preparation we still struggled to get out of the trailhead at a decent time and were actually way late in leaving (2:30 – 3:00). But finally we were ready to go. We parked the llama hauler, said thanks and waved goodbye to John. See you in ten days!
We stormed out of the Rainbow Falls trailhead with full energy. About 1.5 miles down the trail (I mean way down the canyon toward Fish Creek) Mel notices we are going the wrong way. She wanted to hit a spur trail that takes us up to the PCT/JMT but with all the downed trees, it couldn’t be found. So after a bit of tromping around, cursing, and giving up on doing x-country with the llamas, back to the trailhead we went. We have now hiked 3 long, hot miles and haven’t even left yet. Is this trip meant to be?
This time we went down the correct trail and made our way up through the 1995 burn area, and through the switchbacks. After awhile it became painfully obvious we were not going to make our scheduled first nights camp due to a late start and hiking 3 miles for nothing. We made a camp in a level area with no grazing option for the llamas. We fed them a little grain and things will be fine. I risked my life hanging off a waterfall ledge filtering water for the night and next day. Slept without rain fly...beautiful evening.

Day 5
It was a hot and miserable hike with mosquitoes and black flies reminding us that we were in their element and not ours. We got to camp at lower Crater Meadows and again I went to filter water for tonight and tomorrow. But wait, where is my water filter? I cannot find it anywhere. Mel is no help. She doesn’t filter water. I can only assume I left the filter back at our first nights camp spot. I got us water from a spring and toiled at the idea of boiling water for the remainder of the trip. Is this trip meant to be?
Fish Bully was suffering. He had a terrible heat rash going under both arms but one arm was REAL bad. It looked like someone took a hot iron to his underarm. I treated it with 100% aloe. Hopefully it will be okay. Crater Meadow is nothing but one big mosquito breeding ground.

Day 6
I woke up way before Mel or Fish Bully and hiked back to our previous nights camp to see if I could locate my filter. It wasn’t there!! =( I was surprised to see a tent pitched as this wasn’t a good camping spot. We had only stayed there out of necessity. I woke the hikers asking them if they had seen a filter but they hadn’t. I apologized and headed back. The hike back to camp was frustrating because it is all up hill, I have another full day hike when I get there, and I am still without a filter. Is this trip meant to be?
Once back in camp I made killer bacon and pancakes, and as we were eating, the two boys I had woke up earlier came through. They were both 18 and had just graduated high school. Before college started, they were hiking from Yosemite (T.Meadows) to Whitney. They really had it together...neat...I was impressed!
Fish Bully’s heat rash is gone! That’s great! Fish Bully went down in Deer Creek though. He got angry at me for not helping him. I was too busy laughing, slapping my knees, and repeating "Down Goes Frazier". The mosquitoes were horrific. Lot of DEET on this day.

Day 7
Slept in kind of late today. We had bacon, pancakes and buttered toast for breakfast. A little while after breakfast I found my water filter. Even though I had searched real thorough, I had somehow overlooked it in one of the panniers. Hurray!! We cleaned up, packed up the llamas and started our hike. It was relatively an uneventful hike except for the Duck creek crossing which got our attention and we were kind of rushing to get a camp set up as t-storms were threatening. Sure enough it rained and Fish Bully and I kicked back in the tent. Eventually we went to sleep. Nasty weather...mosquitoes...is this trip meant to be?

Day 8
Got up and started our uneventful hike to Purple Lake. The skies still looked ominous and threatening. We did make it to camp, unpack, ate, and went fishing. We caught several good fish. While fishing the skies turned ULGY! Fish Bully and I were talking about how we had better go but still opting for that one last cast when CRACK, lighting struck very close to us. We jolted 5+ feet in the air and ran faster than we ever had as lighting licked our @sses all the way up the hill and back into camp.
After 4 or 3 t-storms moved through the area, the skies started to clear somewhat and we came out and built a fire. We met some really nice people from Norway. They were going to Whitney and we stayed up talking around the fire. They enjoyed some of the luxuries we were able to pack in. We fried up some good fish and hushpuppies and got sleep. BTW, the mosquitoes were out in full force.

Day 9
This is layover day one. I just love layover days =). Fish Bully woke up and went fishing while I cooked breakfast and I later joined him. We enjoyed a beautiful day fishing, cleaning clothes, and cleaning ourselves. It was a beautiful day with a ton of clouds but no rain. And of course, the mosquitoes were hell. Lot of DEET on this day.
Toward the evening time a big group a hikers came through. We wondered were they were going as they passed. We had the only good campsite in the area. Most of the party was kids (about 10 kids ages 8-15) and they had either no pack or a very light pack. We just went, "HUH". Later a huge pack train followed them (4 horses and 12 mules). They had showers, toilets, everything. I tried speaking with the head cowboy to warn him of our llamas. Horses are deathly afraid of llamas and I have seen cowboys thrown from their terrified animals after a llama encounter. But the cowboy didn’t even acknowledge my existence. They went by and we forgot about them...until about 11:00 that night. We were rudely awakened by the sound of a cowbell. I mean a cowbell the size of an overgrown coconut. There were four horses running amuck and the lead horse was wearing the big bell. We had been so careful to tie the llamas in areas they wouldn’t sink in soft ground and make posthole footprints. And here are 4 runaway horses? So here I am barefooted, half asleep, chucking rocks and shouting, "Hey On Outta Here!!"
The next morning the cowboy pack train was leaving and the stuck-up cowboy that wouldn’t talk to me the night before, stopped and ask if we had been awakened by the hooligan horses. We said yes and were not happy about it. He tried telling us that it was Rock Creek pack station that was responsible. Yea right! I don’t trust any of them! Oh yea, the mosquitoes were terrible.

Day 10
Awoke to a beautiful day on layover day two. This was the best day of the entire trip! We had planned a day hike to Virginia Lake to fish for golden trout but Fish Bully had started getting blisters on each heal. I decided he had better not go so we stayed and fished Purple Lake again. There was a little too much wind for fly-fishing so we used spin casters exclusively. Great day! Beautiful fish! We had spaghetti and fish for dinner. And yes, I don’t like mosquitoes but they sure do like me. Lot of DEET on this day.

Day 11
After having two layover days, it wasn’t easy getting out of bed knowing we had to return to the routine of saddling and packing llamas and hiking to other destinations. But we did it. After some breakfast, we hiked back across Duck Creek (hell-of-a-crossing) to Deer Creek for the night. I treated Fish Bully’s blisters after the 8-mile hike. The mosquitoes are actually getting worse I think. Lot of DEET on this day.

Day 12
Hiked from Deer Creek past Crater Meadow to the crossing of Boundary Creek. Tomorrow it will be an easy 3-mile downhill hike out. Fish Bully had his funniest day fishing. Amazingly, his blisters are much better...almost gone! He was catching little brook trout with my fly pole. I was actually kind of proud. He fished with it for 4 hours without damaging anything or jacking anything up. While he fished I hiked to the top of a red cinder cone. I thought I’d get some awesome picture opportunities but there were some treetops above the cinder cone crest. It was very interesting though. There were lots of mosquitoes and DEET on this day.

Day 13
Hiked out from Boundary Creek to Reds Meadow. We were out early and John wasn’t there yet. We un-packed and un-saddled the llamas and tied them where they could graze and went up to the store and got some chips, cookies, and beer. As we were returning from the store Mel stated that one could hear Johns truck from the store as he pulls in the trailhead. Just as she said that I could hear a large truck….it was John. We went back to their house and slept. Fish Bully and I were real anxious to get back to Escalon but I didn’t feel like the 3-hour trip so we left the next morning. I forgot how hot it was before our trip. I don’t know which punishment I’d most come to accept, the heat or the mosquitoes.”

“Excellent report, flip!! It was good to meet you at the campground, and I was wondering how your trip turned out. Hey, I have a question for you: did you notice if there were any mosquitos where you went?”

“Alright Mel!!”

“Thanks BowlderMan! It was great meeting you as well. We'll have to get BowlderSon and Fish Bully out for a weekend hike sometime. They are the same age correct?”

“I think Fish Bully is about a half a year younger - BowlderSon turns 10 in about a week.”

“Loved your report. Hope you don't have as many mosquito bites as I got.? Really nice meeting you two at Onoin Vallry campground. Gotta love deet!”

“Its cools to hear about Mel and your trip.

Haven't heard from her in a while!”

“Good to meet you Flip. Good to know Mel is still getting out.

How were the mosquitoes?”

“Glad to hear everyone had a good time and that you caught some fish. If you get the pictures up be sure to let us know as I want to see the big ones you caught.”

“Nice T R neighbor. Look forward to seeing you out there again some time.”

“flip - Nice trip report...didn't get any fish this time, myself...never got my hook in the water.

I never did get a link to your pics. Would be nice to see them. Please try again.

Sorry we missed you at the Onion Valley Campground. We got in late on Saturday.”

“Thanks and again, it was good visiting with everyone.
JVZ, Songbird, and all other neighbors - we need to go on some hikes! I leave again Friday for a hiking/flyfishing trip out of Gann Meadow (highway 4) to the N. Fork Stanislaus river. It's one of those good hikes were you hike straight down a canyon and straight up coming out. I can take 50lbs of beer!
Solitary - Didn't catch anything over 14 inches. Some places we caught a fish on every cast though.
Phil - Never known you to not wet a line on a trip. Sorry we missed you but we didn't know how long to wait around and we had to pack for our own trip.
Navi - It was good meeting you. I haven't heard any negative fallout concerning the "navi-ale"...must have been good=).
Adventurist, MarkO, and anyone else glad to hear about Mel - She has gone through some really tough times lately, maybe lost a little gitty-up in the step, and the idiots were kind of out of shape but, she is one incredible woman with a boatload of JMT knowledge.”

“Has anyone heard from Mel? I've got some friends in desperate need of some fishing!!!”