I hit the trail early around 6 today hoping to make up the 4 miles before Soho took off in the morning. He usually leaves by 7:30. Didn’t make it.    That then triggered a bunch of frustrating Satellite messaging on my InReach.

Didn’t have his direct address, so he was texting his sister and I was texting my wife. My wife was talking his sister. Two hikers communicating through two non-hikers. What a mess. I suggested one mile marker to meet at, then Soho suggested a different one.  Alice kept asking if I was OK.   It never really reached a conclusion, I just stopped responding. He would be at one of them.

I needed to reset. This circus was my fault, but all this tracking and coordination was feeling like I was back at work. I sat down and had a looooonnnngggg breakfast. Then got back on the trail with some good music.

The trail continued to be rough going. The topography of this area is a set of high, densely packed granite peaks with narrow river valleys between them. The trail basically takes a direct route over both. Descend straight down over rugged granite and washed out trail, a mile of flat, ford some big creek, then climb over another 1 or 1.5k peak and repeat. Easy to lose the trail and easier to lose footing. I was getting worried I’d twist an ankle here.

Late morning I ran into several groups of relatively clean, pudgy folks hiking with day packs. Wasn’t sure how they could get back here, since this area is 40+ miles from the nearest road. Finally I stopped one guy and got the scoop. They are on a 12-day southbound “expedition” and are being trailed by 12 mules and 4 mounted handlers. The same 70 miles we are doing northbound.

Shortly after here comes the supply train. It was huge. Horse with rider, a bunch of mules, another horse, more mules. Seemed to go on forever. After they passed I was covered in a thin layer of dust. But that was not the highlight. No, the best part was all the horse crap and wrecked trail they left in their wake.

It is hard to describe the copious amount of horse shit on the trail. There will piles every 20 or 30 feet FOR MILES. I think because these mules are all closely spaced, they tend to take sub-optimal steps on an already bad trail. It makes the loose stuff looser and on the granite steps they dislodge or loosen all the rocks. Ugh.

They should make a rule that anyone hiking with mules should walk BEHIND the herd.

Steep climbs and deep valleys. There is a lot of rugged beauty out here. This is serious high-sierra back country. Rugged trail, no bridges. I can see why the creek fords are so dangerous in this area during the snow melt. There is wreckage in every valley this year from the floods. This is the area where Tree got swept away and died at PCT mile 980 in Rancheria Creek.   I’d heard from others who came through in July all sorts of harrowing stories. Fortunately these crossings are merely an inconvenience.

Late afternoon the terrain mellowed out to a long, gradual climb up to Dorothy Pass. I figured I could dial up the speed here. Unfortunately it was miles of marsh. The trail was dry for a bit, then descended into muck. A lot of hopping around in wet spongy ground trying to find alternate paths. My progress was slow. Then there were the mosquitos waiting to pounce at every pause. By 7:30, I reached Dorothy lake (mile 996). Pretty lake. I made some dinner there before the light failed, then went on a headlamp over the pass. Finally reunited with Soho around 9:30. He was at mile 999.

The day ended well. I did 24 miles finally erasing my mileage deficit.

Last night, Soho and I were chatting about today’s goal. 20 miles and over 5k of climbing over two passes, it will be a workout. We camped close to a creek crossing that we would normally have to ford, but we found a good crossing spot over some granite falls slightly off trail. Soho packed and disappeared into the trees.

While I was packing, I figured that I’d get on trail then not look at my positioning app until completing the first climb. No need monitoring my agony.

This great idea turned out to be a 10 mile mistake.

Crossed the stream around 7, checked my position to insure I was on trail, then started walking. First through a nice valley, then a long climb up to 10k. Was tempted to check my progress, but resisted. I was making good progress.

The trail was well maintained and I ran into several bunches of hikers coming down. Normal stuff. At 10, I reached a big flat area at the top of the pass with a large lake. Very pretty. Was taking a couple pics when I noticed the pass was called “Summit Pass”. Hmm… I thought this was called Benson pass.

I sat down to check my mileage and plan the rest of the day on my phone. That was when I finally realized that I’d gone the wrong way. I had walked 5 miles on the wrong trail ALL MORNING. Not only that, but the two trails diverged by 90 degrees almost at the start so there was no bushwacking my way out of this one. I was so pissed off.

Instead of a hard 20 mile day, I had a nearly impossible 30 mile day with 8k of climbing.

I practically ran the 5 miles back to my starting point, cursing all the way. Reached it at noon and I was already feeling tired.

The rest of the day was filled with hiking and hiking with only 5 minute breaks every hour or two, Adding to that was a couple river fords which consume 20 minutes of time switching shoes and drying off. I spent the whole day angry with myself. Not the sort of zen-like experience I’m supposed to have. Crossed the 10k Benson pass at 5. Here are a couple of hasty pictures.

After that descent, it was the next climb to Rock Island pass. The trail had been degrading all day. All this Northern area of Yosemite gets hit by a lot of erosion and is not really popular hiking ground. Trail maintenance is definitely not a priority here. Most of this area has not been worked on for years. The shear walls of the terrain caused dusk to come early. I was on the headlamp by 7.

I hiked until 10:30, then gave up at mile 975. I was not going to reach Soho tonight. I was exhausted, the trail was a mess, and was going to get hurt if I continued. Did 26 miles (only 16 of the PCT miles) and 8k of elevation change today. I put up my tent and collapsed.

According to the Yosemite Area Rapid Transit (YART) site, the bus will be running on Labor day.   It is supposed to pick up at 7:30 on Old Mammoth and drop us at Toulome.   Well, that turned out to be a bust.    Waited an hour, no bus.   Giving up that, we tried hitching on the road out of town.   Another hour wasted.    What is the deal with these people? 

I finally gave up and called a taxi service.   It cost $160 to get our asses back to the trail.   As soon as we get dropped off a Yosemite maintenance truck pulled up and the dude shouts out to us.   It is Tito in uniform looking all respectable.   He has dreads pulled back flowing out the back of his cap.    

Small world.    It is about to get even smaller.   

Since it was almost noon by the time we got there, time for another trip to the grill a the general store.    Sitting down at the picnic table, we run into Nathan and Luna working their way through a couple 6 packs of IPA.      Turns out Nathan didn’t take that 2 week job at VVR.   Now here he is offering me a tasty IPA with my burger.    Soho ran into a German PCT’er he hiked with early on who is Northing now after skipping the Sierras.   His name is “The Other One”.    That’s a mouthful.   He is hanging with a German/American named Octane who is also headed North.   Might run into these folks again.

All this wasted 2 more hours.    Finally on the trail we walked a wide well maintained trail.   Soho found a pic of John Muir on a placard.   See the likeness ?

The trail follows the Toulome River up the canyon.   Lots of somewhat less rugged granite mountains.    There must be a lot of water running through here during the melt. 

This was impressive. 

Arrived at our camp spot around 6.   It is next to one of the rivers feeding the Toulome system.    Nice spot.    Given all the headaches getting started, 14 miles seems ok for today.   

Not much going on today.   I had another resupply box here.   Going to reload for the hike to Kennedy Meadows North.    Should be a 5 day trip.   These are easy to plan. 

Today it is a short 11 mile hike down to Toulome’s general store.    Plan is to get a burger then hitch somehow to Mammoth for a zero.  

The walk down Lyell canyon is an easy one.   Almost flat, slightly downhill.    I got ahead of Soho early on and poured on the speed.   Kept running into JMT’ers, mostly southbound and full of questions I didn’t feel like answering.  

Passed 3 groups of northbounders who were finishing up.   Kind of hard getting around them, their packs are so big (heh).    Struck up a couple of nice conversations while walking, but these folks didn’t seem as motivated as me to get that burger.

About 2 miles from Toulome, ran into yet another ranger who wanted to see my permit.   Yosemite is a police state. 

Rolled into Toulome Meadows a little before 12.   The exact route that took 3.5 days last time with Stephanie and her friends took only 27 hours at the PCT hiker pace which was about 15 hours of hiking.    It is an interesting contrast.   Totally different style of hiking.   At least  14.5  of those hours was spent looking at the ground instead of the scenery.  

Soho showed up a bit later and we had burgers and beer.   Spent another hour chatting with other JMT’ers who were picking up resupply boxes, lunching before going back on trail, etc.    Not sure why you need to resupply after only 20 miles of walking from the Yosemite start.

This is the labor day weekend and there is a ton of automobile traffic on the 120.    We figured a hitch would be simple.   Turns out it was impossible to get anyone to stop.    We stood out there with our thumbs out for over an hour.    Hundreds of cars passed us and not a single one stopped.    Stupid Los Angeles city people.   The looks of fear they gave us would have been funny if I wasn’t getting so hot standing there. 

Soho and I got so discouraged that we walked back to the store so we could thumb it in relays while the other drank beer.    We decided anyone in a nice car was a bad bet.   We needed a beat-up ride driven by some local.    Sure enough we see 15 year old dented and calico colored Subaru signal us.    It pulls into the parking lot and out pops Tito a tall white guy with foot-long dreadlocks.  

Tito is a late 20’s rock climbing junkie who works a seasonal job with Yosemite.    Super nice guy originally from Michigan or Wisconsin, can’t remember exactly.    Turns out he is heading down the Lee Vining to pick up a package, then to Mammoth to do some grocery shopping for a birthday party he is throwing for a “friend-who-is-a-girl”.   He seems to be very specific about the distinction.

He moves some of his rock climbing stuff around and we wedge our packs in the back.   I make some foot space from the pile of cans and bottles on the floor of the passenger seat, then climb in.   Soho takes the back seat.   On the way down, Tito explains that he has ordered some new minimalist shoes and, because he finds Yosemite’s postal service to be unreliable, he is having it shipped to a coffee shop in Lee Vining.    We arrive there and hop out since he is clearly going to be socializing for a while with all the employees.  

Soho and I mill around then decide to enter and order some coffee.   Who is behind the counter?  Carrie.    The same gal who is dating Trent, the guy riding his horse up the PCT and last seen at Burnie guest ranch, at least 400 PCT miles North of here.   This is some freaky stuff.   We chat with her while Tito learns that his shoes were returned by the local post master because, according to him, she is a hater.   This sends him into a long tirade about having to contact the vendor via email, finding the tracking number, blah, blah.    Poor Tito just doesn’t like the modern world.

Eventually we load up and head to Mammoth.   When he is pulling up to my condo, we talk a bit about winter job last year.   He was helping with snow removal for a “guy who manages houses for rich people”.   Turns out that guy is Jeff…..the dude who cleans and checks out our condo.   Sure is a small world here on the Eastern side of the Sierras.