TR: Rush Creek to Thousand Island and some words of caution

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jfelectron
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TR: Rush Creek to Thousand Island and some words of caution

Post by jfelectron »

This is both a trip report and a cautionary tale.

My fiance, our dog and myself drove through Yosemite to Lower Lee Vining Campground on Saturday 6/2. Its a satisfactory and lightly used campground off of Tioga Road just West of Lee Vining. We were pleased to find Jessie from Toy Story in the Bear Box:

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We got our permit Sunday morning and headed to the Rush Creek Trailhead near Silver Lake. The trail heads pretty much straight up past the ugly and very low Agnew lake and the prettier Gem Lake, which are both hydroelectric retention lakes. From Gem lake, an additional climb takes you up to the Clark lakes. We found a lovely site on a ridge just North of the Clark Lakes. As we arrived in the afternoon we noticed clouds building over the Ritter Range. As you might know, Sierra T-storms follow roughly a 4-5 day build cycle. By closely watching the sky each day you can roughly predict when the storm will occur.

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We woke up to brisk windy but sunny conditions and headed toward Thousand Island Lake at the base of Mt. Banner. On the way you are treated to some very nice views down the South Fork San Joaquin Valley.

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Once we arrived at TI, the weather looked considerably worse. Banner was half shrouded in clouds, which meant that the cloud stack was at least 1.5k thick.

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It soon became apparent that something wicked was brewing.

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Rather than bailing for lower elevations, we stupidly staid put and choose what would be a really bad site to pitch our tarp:

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High winds and hail started in earnest. The sound of the hail was deafening.

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After a number of hours, many inches of hail built up around us. Suddenly, the hail switched to rain and this melted all the hail around us. This lead to massive flooding of the bench we had pitched our tarp on.

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The flooding occurred within seconds and my fiances down sleeping bag partially wet. I had a synthetic quilt. We quickly shoved our bags into a backpack and prepared to move the tarp. It was near sunset and we didn't feel it was advisable to try to walk over any ridges in a T-storm to leave the lake. I rapidly tore down the tarp and ran further up the slope to find a better site. Due to the flooding, I only recovered 6 of the 8 stakes but I placed this at key positions to provide maximum stability against the winds. My fiance huddles with our dog under her poncho and then ran up to meet me. I instructed her to get under the now pitched tarp while I ran back down the hill to retrieve our backpacks and grab our additional warm clothing that we hadn't been wearing. I was successful in grabbing our backpacks and stuffed our food and stove into one. I grabbed a clothes bag and thought I had stuffed it into the other bag. There were some remaining items that had been scattered under the tarp that I deemed non-essential. My body temperature was dropping and I didn't want to remain out in the elements much longer so I ran back up to the tarp to strip off my wet clothes. At this point we realized that we didn't have all of our warm clothing and the down sleeping bag was quite wet at both ends but dry in the middle. We knew that our biggest enemy was hypothermia so we devised a strategy to make it through the night. We sand-witched either on top of each other or next to each other on a 20" wide NeoAir on top of frozen ground. We used the damp sleeping bag as a quilt over both of us and our 18 lb Terrier. We used the synthetic quilt to block gaps that the sleeping bag didn't cover.Fortunately, we each were wearing a warm hat. This strategy proved effective at trapping sufficient core heat to stave off hypothermia as temperatures plummeted during the night to the low teens. It was a sleepless night but we worked together to and kept cool heads to stay alive. Fortunately, the sun rose to clear skies but all our our gear and the entire landscape around us was a frozen winter wonderland. 5-6 inches of snow fell on top of the hail all running water on rocks was frozen. We had to chip our gear which we had left at the first campsite out of inches thick ice that formed over the flooded site. We were able to dry enough of our gear to get dressed and pack out. Snow dusted the entire region down to at least 8.5k. The trails are blazed, which made following the snow obscured trails easier.

I had tarp camped for many nights but had never experienced such adverse conditions. I do think that my many years of backcountry experience helped us survived once things degraded to a life threatening situation. I came away from this with many lessons:

1) I should not let my zeal for carrying less to compromise safety
2) I should not let the relatively warm winter and relative lack of snow in the high sierra to pacify me into thinking its summer. June is still June and inclement weather should be expected.
3) I should think more carefully about moving higher with an impending storm.
4) I should examine the topology around a chosen campsite more carefully when rain is expected.

More photos: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 559&type=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Last edited by jfelectron on Thu Jun 07, 2012 7:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Carne_DelMuerto
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Re: TR: Rush Creek to Thousand Island and some words of caution

Post by Carne_DelMuerto »

Very glad you made it back to deliver this report. Quite a tale and maybe one of the best trail reports I've read. Excellent advice all around. Thank you.
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Re: TR: Rush Creek to Thousand Island and some words of caution

Post by jfelectron »

Even after many years of experience, its all too easy to become pacified my mostly good weather. Its easy to forget just how quickly things can change and become dire.
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phunhog
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Re: TR: Rush Creek to Thousand Island and some words of caution

Post by phunhog »

Glad you made it out safely. Serves as a good reminder to everyone to check and re-check current and expected weather conditions for your trip. Also to always have some sort of contingency plan.
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Re: TR: Rush Creek to Thousand Island and some words of caution

Post by quentinc »

That is a scary tale and I'm glad it ended well. It's probably not much consolation, but that photo of the clouds coming over the Ritter Range is pretty amazing.
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Re: TR: Rush Creek to Thousand Island and some words of caution

Post by markskor »

Not to appear callous or jaded here, but what are you doing up there so early without the proper gear in the first place?
Today too many ultra-lighters often thinking less is more, proceed to take calculated chances that the typical Sierra storms that frequently roll through will never "rain" on their early-season parade. Glad you made it back safe and all, but having tried and true gear, the experience in how to use it correctly, and the knowledge of how to pick a dry campsite initially would have placated the problem.

For the record, two of us were also up in Southern Yosemite around 8500 over Memorial Day when a 2-day storm came through.
A foot of snow (grapnel) stranded us with periods of intermittent heavy rain following...(Sound familiar?) Temps got down to the high teens...high winds/ heavy fog...all turning to morning ice. (Mike has the photos.)
Even though we were tent bound for a day (messed up some good fishing), we both stayed warm and dry, and after the storm subsided, we happily continued on for another week.
Same storm, tested gear, and never a thought of bailing out.

Yes a good tale of caution.
Mountainman who swims with trout
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jfelectron
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Re: TR: Rush Creek to Thousand Island and some words of caution

Post by jfelectron »

Well we all assume calculated risk in the back country eh? And I've talked to many a sierra backpacker that has never experienced foul weather in many years. They are afraid of weather and don't really know what to do. So to say one's gear is truly tried and true has to be considered in context. Even 3-season tents can fail in adverse conditions. The flooding was our down fall and the site chosen was not an obvious location for runoff to pool. For hours we weathered heavy winds and hail and rain without problem. The flooding was sudden and unpredicted and is obviously a problem with a floorless shelter. You're absolutely right, I made some stupid decisions in the spirit of ultralight.
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Re: TR: Rush Creek to Thousand Island and some words of caution

Post by oldranger »

jfelectron

My good friend mark is a little harsh in his criticism. Almost 50 years of experience has served him so well he probably has forgotten a few of his early experiences as well as how deep the snow got on our trip--3 inches max and the rain was a drizzel and it was Memorial Day weekend. But don't hold that against him, he is getting really old. You listed all right lessons and in 30 years you will probably shake your head at someone else's similar mistakes. One reason I use a 25 x 80 2.6 inch thick downmat airmattress is knowing that my bag is more likely to stay dry if an ark is in order. A tent with a bathtub floor is nice too but I've used tarps and stayed dry in multi day deluges. Don't forget those lessons you learned--ever, even on a bluebird day.

Mike
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Re: TR: Rush Creek to Thousand Island and some words of caution

Post by rlown »

I didn't think mark was harsh. Still a great report on how not to set up a camp. The ominous cloud formation in your pic kind of said it all.
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Re: TR: Rush Creek to Thousand Island and some words of caution

Post by jfelectron »

Mike,

Thanks, I respect the wisdom of your combined years. Skill kept us alive, we didn't panic and we used the pieces of equipment we had to mitigate a bad situation.

Respectfully,

Jonathan
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