BowlderBoys Conquer JMT/2

“We survived!!

Partied with Calipidder and her pals at Deer Creek and Red's Meadow.

We even bumped into wannabp and landscaperjb at Tuolumne this morning!!

I "only" took about 330 photos, so it may be a while to get them uploaded and captioned, but just thought I'd report in.

Anything new?”

“Congrats!”

“George Bush apologized to the American people and resigned the presidency, Birch and XL are planning an '08 AT thruhike and Solitary Hiker has converted to Judaism. Other than that, not much.”

“OK, I have the first half of our pics here:

http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/560368533zdKSaB

The second half of them are on Webshots, but I don't have captions yet - you can find them if you want a preview. Trip report still to come!”

“cool, I actually recognized some”

“Didja see anything you dropped?”

“OK, here's a trip report - I'll probably remember more stuff over the next several days....

Day 0 - Drive to the mountains
No excitement here. Got to Mammoth, checked into the Shilo Inn, then went to catch the bus down to Red's Meadow to drop off the resupply box for us and boxes for Calipidder and wannabp/landscaperjb. It rained on us about the time we got back to the car.

Day 1 - The Start!
Drove to Tuolumne Meadows and parked. Deer welcomed us to the trail. Saw about 20 Indians (I saw a hat indicating at least one was of the Miwok tribe) hike by, chanting and drumming - cool! Hiked under cloudy skies, hearing distant thunder. No rain, good hiking weather. Stopped at 7 miles because BowlderSon had sore ankle.

Day 2 - Donohue Pass
Gorgeous day. Hiked to pass fairly quickly - concerned about possible thunderstorms. No storms. Saw bald eagle in meadow before the pass - cool! Marmots at pass. Hiked on to where Rush Creek forks.

Day 3 - Thousand Island Lake
Shortest day of the trip - good idea. We renamed Island Pass "50 Pass Pass," as it seemed to go on forever - beautiful, though. Went XC down to the lake to save about a mile - great campsite. Skinny dipped in lake. Saw another bald eagle - this one did the climb, then 40 mph swoop over to near where we were. B-Son concerned when I mentioned that eagle talons were ideally suited to grabbing butt cheeks. Windy, then calm around sunset.

Day 4 - The winds of terror
Wind started about 2 AM. Strong, strong wind almost all day. We barely made it over the bridge at the Garnet Lake outlet - VERY scary. Camped at Rosalie Lake.

Day 5 - Back to Civilization
Easy hike in to Red's Meadow. Got there around 2 and the 3 backpacker sites were taken. No one was there - if they had been, they likely would have told us "Just grab a spot and join us!" which they did to the other folks who arrived later. Instead, we found a car camping spot. Did a bunch of laundry. Double cheeseburger and a call home. Hot shower. Met up with Calipidder and her pals. To bed at 9, but loud people in adjacent campsite kept us up - we wanted to do a hand shadow on our tent wall of a raised middle finger, but resisted. The "Phantom Finger" remained an ongoing joke for the rest of the trip.

Day 6 - Back to the Trail
Fairly toasty day on the trail. Saw another bald eagle, and a deer again welcomed us onto the trail. Cruised into Deer Creek fairly early and set up near Calipidder's gang. Lots of lounging in and around the creek. Good conversation with good folks. However, a very loud group of hikers arrived and set up right next to all of us. We christened them the "Von Loudendork Family Yelpers." At least they quieted down in the evening.

Day 7 - Lake Virginia
Our friends hit the trail early, as they had a monster mileage day ahead. We had a nice hike, lunching at Duck Creek, then arriving at Lake Virginia and finding a nice campsite. About and hour later, the Von Loudendorks arrived and began to unload about 50 feet away from us. B-Son politely pointed out that there was a very nice group of sites a couple hundred feet away, but they declined. So we moved our stuff over there instead. They ended up setting up most of their tents on the sensitive grassy areas near the water and making lots of noise until near sunset. We enjoyed the light show on the mountains, with one rock formation casting a shadow of the Phantom Finger! Found a couple of obsidian flakes, indicating that some prehistoric folks had once used this area to fashion some stone tools and/or arrowheads.

Day 8 - BowlderSon's 12th Birthday!
Awoke to find some ice in the Platypus bags! Also, smoke was becoming visible - wonder where the fire is. B-Son decided he wanted to conquer a pass on his birthday, even though we didn't really need to get over Silver Pass. It wasn't actually too tough, and we found a nice site at the outlet end of Silver Pass Lake. A while after we did a little skinny dipping, guess who arrived? The Von Loudendorks! The dad walked into our "kitchen" and asked if they could camp there. I said no. So they set up about 50 feet away, despite noting the 50 acres of potential campsites all around us. Later, I had to ask them to lower their voices, as they were shouting and singing at the top of their lungs. Argh!

Day 9 - Back to Civilization Again
An easy hike downhill to Edison Lake. Stopped for lunch, then for B-Son for a quick dip in the creek. Arrived at the usual ferry landing to find there was no lake! Had to hike an extra half mile (more?) to where the boat would arrive. When boat arrived, Calipidder and most of her gang were on it, getting off to start the hot, steep switchbacks in cooler temps than the usual mid-morning dropoff time. We arrived at VVR and claimed our room (beds! shower!) before venturing to the restaurant to reclaim all those calories we burned.

Day 10 - R&R
A very lazy day doing laundry, packaging up food for the final segment, eating, resting, etc. It was BBQ night at VVR, so I had chicken and B-Son had the tri-tip.

Day 11 - Bear Ridge
Started the day with our heaviest packs of the trip - most food and full water (for the hot climb up and over Bear Ridge). We took a systematic approach, resting for a few minutes every 15. We counted 60 switchbacks, and before we knew it, we were up and over the top and down to Bear Creek, where we nabbed a nice campsite.

Day 12 - Meteors!
We started this day at 12:45 AM, when my watch alarm went off, signalling us to get up and move up to the small clearing to watch the Perseid meteor shower. We counted 31 in a half hour - very cool!! We slept in a little, then followed Bear Creek upstream to picturesque Rosemarie Meadow, before climbing past Marie Lake up to Selden Pass (10,800'). We liked the little canyon down to Heart Lake, whose outlet appeared to disappear into infinity. Nice campsite at Sallie Keyes Lakes, where we went down to watch the fish jump at sunset.

Day 13 - Piute Pass Trail Jct.
Lots of smoke in the morning - even a few cinders on the bear canisters in the AM. It got better as the day went on. Got to the junction with the Piute Pass trail pretty early, and did some laundry at our nice campsite northeast of the junction. Chatted with a nice couple from Toronto.

Day 14 - Evolution Valley
From here, we followed the South Fork of the San Joaquin River, a beautiful stream with lots of variety, to the trail junction for Goddard Canyon. Word on the trail was that the workers nearby were building a trail that would connect this trail across the mountains to some other trail (it is currently a dead-end, at least as far as maintained trails). We had the only stream crossing of the trip that involved getting a little wet, just below Evolution Meadow - B-Son took his boots off, while I tolerated a little water getting into mine. Found a decent campsite between Ev. Mdw. and McClure Meadow, and went down for a swim in the creek, which was really nice. After drying off, we strolled a mile and a half up to the ranger's cabin and had a nice chat with her. On the way there, we saw a pine marten and some deer, including a fawn that still had its spots! We enjoyed the alpenglow on the tip top of The Hermit that we could see from our camp.

Day 15 - Evolution Lake
The day dawned smokey, and we worried that we might miss out on some of the trip's best scenery. We slept in and got a later start, in large part to be well-rested for Day 16. It was a pretty easy hike up to Evolution Lake, and the smoke had dissipated enough that the views were very good. We camped where Calipidder had suggested, right at the top of the waterfall outlet of the lake. Walked around a bit, took some pics, then went into the tent for some gear organizing. All of a sudden, B-Son said, "Dad, we missed the alpenglow." I said, "No way!" I looked out, and sure enough, the sunlight was gone from the mountains! Not to worry, though, the sun had gone behind a part smoke/part clound obstruction. When it came out, the lighting all over the place was downright freaky, and I took a whole bunch of shots all over the place. I was running all around snapping away, and probably got the best shots of the trip. To bed early, knowing our final day of hiking would be the toughest.

Day 16 - Lamarck Col
We were up earlier than usual, and hit the trail by 7:15. We easily found the use trail, and made it to the first lake of Darwin Canyon by around 9:30. Then it got tough. I think there must be an easier way to get up to the point where you climb to the col because it took us over 2 hours to get there (about a mile and a half with a slight climb). we had lunch, realizing that our window of timing to get to the peak and then to the trailhead to meet BowlderGal were pretty much toast. The climb up to the Col was pretty straightforward, as there were many routes others had taken. We crested the Col and looked down to the snowfield, which looked pretty much like I expected. I scampered down to it, but found that, instead of the soft, melting suncups I expected, the surface was solid ice. I couldn't jam my trekking pole in more than an eighth of an inch and the mountain laughed at my attempt to kick a step into the ice. With a couple hundred feet drop to some nasty, sharp boulders, I decided we had to re-route to a drop-in point to one side or the other of the snow. So we dropped back down the Darwin Canyon side a couple hundred feet, then climbed to a spot a few hundred feet to the northwest. From there, it was a little tricky to downclimb down to a walkable surface, but not too bad. The whole exercise took another hour or two (I had decided to not check the time until we were safely down from the Col). From there, it was a pretty straightforward hike down to North Lake, although the trail down from Upper to Lower Lamarck Lake did not seem familiar at all. We had arranged to attempt to call B-Gal by FRS radio around 5:00, and we did reach her at about a quarter after, and informed her it would be around an hour until we got down. But the trail was really rocky and steep, and our feet were killing us by this time. We finally made it into the campground area after 7 PM, just about exactly 12 hours after we started.

We drove to Bishop, checked into the Best Western Creekside Inn (NICE!), shaved, showered, then went for pizza and beer.

Day 17 - Drive Home
The drive home was fine. Stopped in Tuolumne Meadows for a bathroom stop and B-Son decided to buy a candy bar at the store. I stood outside, looked to my right, and, OMG! There were wannabp and landscaperjb!! We chatted with them for several minutes, I took their bug dope (just useless dead weight on this trip), and off they went to continue their adventure. Traffic was a pain, as it usually is, through 205 and 580, but we made it home alive.


Stats
16 Hiking Days
110 miles, give or take 5
3 mosquito bites (8 total mosquitos observed)
0 drops of rain
0 bears
12-15 deer (lost count)
1 pine marten
3 pikas
4 zillion chipmunks or equivalent
9 marmots
5 bald eagles
1 golden eagle
1 big honkin' hawk
3 bats
0 blisters (!)
2 small handfuls of peanuts left over
2 pelicans
1 snake
1 ranger

Gear Notes
Sock System - I switched to a liner/wool sock system for the first time and it worked great.

Underwear - I tried some different underwear - I've worn cotton before, but I got some from TravelSmith that are some kind of man-made fabric. Very comfortable, and they dried in about a half hour after washing.

Shirt - I got a new shirt at REI that worked out great. Can't remember the model name, but it's just a basic wicking t-shirt of some sort. Washed it out every night and it never got smelly (I did, but the shirt didn't).

Clothes line - got the little clothes line from REI (?) that comes with the little plastic clothes pin thingees. Great.

Fuel - I calc'd the fuel just right. We finished with about a half canister (used the Pocket Rocket).

Platypus Bag with hose - Gotta work out a better system. My pack has a sleeve for this but no outlet portal, like B-Son's pack. Never quite fit just right.

Wind screen - I made one for the PR out of a foil cookie sheet, which worked great!
last edited: 8/21/07 3:03:18 PM”

“lol, did ya find a head lamp?”

“Killah trip report, Bowlderman! Very nicely done. Must have been a fantastic time to go with nearly zero skeeters! Always makes the trip more enjoyable...”

“No headlamp, gem, but mine somehow got turned on all day in my pack - I think the LED lamps are wrecked (I was in the market for a new one anyway, heh heh heh).

I thought the bugs might be non-existent - what a pleasure to be able to change clothes, open the tent, etc., without having to dodge those little suckers!”

“What a great trip that was! Other than the Von Loudendorks and car campers...”

“Got the captions on the 2nd half of my photos:

http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/560373571lJhOIu”

“Nice! Looks like you guys had a lot of fun.”

“Nice Marty.
Cameron is smiling in every photo. I think it's cool that you don't have to drag him out and he really wants to be there with you.
We did the TM to Agnew part of that trip a couple years ago. Beautiful terrain. It brought back memories. In fact a couple of your campsites looked familiar as well. Looks like there's still drinking water in the lakes.
A few of use are continuing from Agnew to Reds Meadow over the Labor Day weekend. Any updates I should know? We plan to park at Agnew and shuttle back up on Monday.”

“Hey, songbo! No special updates - water is plentiful and there are no bugs. I think we saw 4 of the 5 bald eagles we saw between Tuolumne and Red's, so keep an eye out!”

“Finally got the time to look at the photos and then found this TR. Looks like you guys had a great time -- no surprise :-) The lighting was really neat in the 'weird lighting' shots.

Your photos took me right back. It's so beautiful.

So will you guys do the second half next year? Jerry was looking at your photos and said he could do the whole thing again -- maybe Tuolumne to Cottonwood, skip the touron parts next time.”

“That's the plan - just have to decide where to enter. I'd kind of like to go back in the way we came out, now that we know what to expect at Lamarck. The other option would be over Bishop Pass, but then we'd be missing a few miles between Evolution Lake and where the B. Pass trail comes in.”

“Missing Muir Pass on the Muir Trail doesn't seem right. We have some local friends who did something similar. Now that stretch is the only part of the JMT they haven't done.

Does Cameron take some of the pictures?”