TR: Kearsarge Follies & The German Jedi of Yosemite
Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2023 10:32 am
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." -Mike Tyson
Plan A back in April was to enter at Kearsarge and exit at Road's End. My buddy is a big fan of Kings Canyon and has never been there, so the thought of hiking down Bubbs Creek into the Canyon proper sounded like a nice slice of heaven.
Reality then asserted itself, and Road's End wasn't exactly a good egress point for the 2023 season.
Plan B was then to enter at Kearsarge, futz around at Kearsarge Lakes, Bullfrog, and Charlotte, then maybe pop up to Glen Pass and get an eyeful of the Rae Lakes before going back over Kearsarge.
Sep. 24 2023, Day 1: Arrive from sea level at 1330 in the Onion Valley parking lot. We split the hike to the pass into two parts, stopping to camp at Flower Lake at 1630. While there's a constant (and I mean constant) flow of dayhikers and PCTers finishing the Sierras, only one other camper is present at Flower as well as one lone mosquito, a flock of grouse, a gorgeous sunset, and high spirits. We hydrate well. Night temps dropping to low 30s/high 20s.
Day 2: Breakfast for me is cheese grits and coffee. Midway through the coffee, I vomit it all right back into the mug. Just the coffee - not one single grit. I chalk it up to poorly-reconstituted coffee crystals and have a pint of water instead. It stays down. In an effort to keep my weight down, I carry just enough water to get me to the pass, reasoning that it's a smooth glide down to Kearsarge Lakes once you're up there. I sip delicately on the way up, and don't eat, reasoning that I'll have a party at the top.
(..can you spot the mistakes? I sure can!)
At 1130 we make the pass and celebrate with food and water. I soon find it difficult to enjoy either, or to chew and swallow. Buddy says "How you feeling?" and as I turn to speak to him, I'm sick again, once, twice, three times in three minutes. Dayhiker witness is wide-eyed; PCTer witness bears only the thousand-yard stare of someone who has seen seen it all and only has 50 miles and 3 days before they need to figure out what to do with the rest of their life.
So now I'm dizzy, loopy, and puking right at the pass. If it's 'just' dehydration, I could remedy that at Kearsarge Lakes. If it's incipient altitude sickness, the Lakes are still at 11kft. We make, I make, the hard choice to turn back. I spend fifteen minutes sipping thin Gatorade and cycle breathing while Buddy carries my pack down just past the chutes. When the world starts merely rotating lazily instead of spinning, we head back down. 1600 or so we arrive back at Onion Valley, safe and sound. I take three quarts over the next two hours and we work out Plan C, camping at Grays Meadows where it's low 40s.
Day 3: Backup plan is to proceed into Yosemite and do some epic hiking at lower altitudes. We score a last minute reservation at Tamarack Flat campground and resolve, since it's been 30 years since Buddy saw Yosemite, to hike to El Cap for views of epic glorious epicness. Since it's a Tuesday my two favorite post-hike spots on 395 (Keough's & Copper Top) are closed, so we head to Wild Willy's to soak, where there is a vast number of naked people. (What's the term for a flock of nudists, anyways? An audacity? A brazen?)
Once in Yosemite, we bag a few small domes and hike a ways up Lyell Canyon. The caved-in steel roof struts of the Tuolumne Meadows Grill are a lingering testament to the savage winter. Tamarack Flat is mid-20s that night, colder than at Flower Lake. We find a large rattlesnake skin under our table which the camp host promises to show/spook the rangers since it's apparently both a bit high and cold for rattlers at Tamarack? No idea.
Day 4: Clear skies and a surprisingly busy trail which gets even more crowded once it merges with the leg that comes up from the valley. It's the last week of September and Yosemite is PACKED. Even with the crowds, it's a great day; it's Yosemite, after all, come on! While digging an unanticipated cathole, a squirrel comes up about six feet from me and digs its own. I take this as a sign that I have good instincts on places to **** in the woods. Either that, or this squirrel is a pervert.
After a long day of fresh air and great vistas, we settle in at our last camp site at Hodgdon Meadow (another last-minute-only-spot-open, low 40s at night) next to German twins who are hiking to every Sequoia grove in the state because they love, love, love the Endor scenes from Return of the Jedi - which they proceed to watch in German on an iPad. They also consider themselves Jedi, and were kind enough to give a stinky unslept giant dwarf one of their beers. I drift off to the sounds of "Otah gotah, Solo!" and "Ya, mein Emperor."
Day 5: We drive home, planning for 2024. One last hike at Mariposa Grove, where we declare the Grizzly Giant our new favorite sequoia. On the way out of Yosemite, we see the Wienermobile drive by as we leave Mariposa. It is somehow the least strange thing that's happened.
Plan A back in April was to enter at Kearsarge and exit at Road's End. My buddy is a big fan of Kings Canyon and has never been there, so the thought of hiking down Bubbs Creek into the Canyon proper sounded like a nice slice of heaven.
Reality then asserted itself, and Road's End wasn't exactly a good egress point for the 2023 season.
Plan B was then to enter at Kearsarge, futz around at Kearsarge Lakes, Bullfrog, and Charlotte, then maybe pop up to Glen Pass and get an eyeful of the Rae Lakes before going back over Kearsarge.
Sep. 24 2023, Day 1: Arrive from sea level at 1330 in the Onion Valley parking lot. We split the hike to the pass into two parts, stopping to camp at Flower Lake at 1630. While there's a constant (and I mean constant) flow of dayhikers and PCTers finishing the Sierras, only one other camper is present at Flower as well as one lone mosquito, a flock of grouse, a gorgeous sunset, and high spirits. We hydrate well. Night temps dropping to low 30s/high 20s.
Day 2: Breakfast for me is cheese grits and coffee. Midway through the coffee, I vomit it all right back into the mug. Just the coffee - not one single grit. I chalk it up to poorly-reconstituted coffee crystals and have a pint of water instead. It stays down. In an effort to keep my weight down, I carry just enough water to get me to the pass, reasoning that it's a smooth glide down to Kearsarge Lakes once you're up there. I sip delicately on the way up, and don't eat, reasoning that I'll have a party at the top.
(..can you spot the mistakes? I sure can!)
At 1130 we make the pass and celebrate with food and water. I soon find it difficult to enjoy either, or to chew and swallow. Buddy says "How you feeling?" and as I turn to speak to him, I'm sick again, once, twice, three times in three minutes. Dayhiker witness is wide-eyed; PCTer witness bears only the thousand-yard stare of someone who has seen seen it all and only has 50 miles and 3 days before they need to figure out what to do with the rest of their life.
So now I'm dizzy, loopy, and puking right at the pass. If it's 'just' dehydration, I could remedy that at Kearsarge Lakes. If it's incipient altitude sickness, the Lakes are still at 11kft. We make, I make, the hard choice to turn back. I spend fifteen minutes sipping thin Gatorade and cycle breathing while Buddy carries my pack down just past the chutes. When the world starts merely rotating lazily instead of spinning, we head back down. 1600 or so we arrive back at Onion Valley, safe and sound. I take three quarts over the next two hours and we work out Plan C, camping at Grays Meadows where it's low 40s.
Day 3: Backup plan is to proceed into Yosemite and do some epic hiking at lower altitudes. We score a last minute reservation at Tamarack Flat campground and resolve, since it's been 30 years since Buddy saw Yosemite, to hike to El Cap for views of epic glorious epicness. Since it's a Tuesday my two favorite post-hike spots on 395 (Keough's & Copper Top) are closed, so we head to Wild Willy's to soak, where there is a vast number of naked people. (What's the term for a flock of nudists, anyways? An audacity? A brazen?)
Once in Yosemite, we bag a few small domes and hike a ways up Lyell Canyon. The caved-in steel roof struts of the Tuolumne Meadows Grill are a lingering testament to the savage winter. Tamarack Flat is mid-20s that night, colder than at Flower Lake. We find a large rattlesnake skin under our table which the camp host promises to show/spook the rangers since it's apparently both a bit high and cold for rattlers at Tamarack? No idea.
Day 4: Clear skies and a surprisingly busy trail which gets even more crowded once it merges with the leg that comes up from the valley. It's the last week of September and Yosemite is PACKED. Even with the crowds, it's a great day; it's Yosemite, after all, come on! While digging an unanticipated cathole, a squirrel comes up about six feet from me and digs its own. I take this as a sign that I have good instincts on places to **** in the woods. Either that, or this squirrel is a pervert.
After a long day of fresh air and great vistas, we settle in at our last camp site at Hodgdon Meadow (another last-minute-only-spot-open, low 40s at night) next to German twins who are hiking to every Sequoia grove in the state because they love, love, love the Endor scenes from Return of the Jedi - which they proceed to watch in German on an iPad. They also consider themselves Jedi, and were kind enough to give a stinky unslept giant dwarf one of their beers. I drift off to the sounds of "Otah gotah, Solo!" and "Ya, mein Emperor."
Day 5: We drive home, planning for 2024. One last hike at Mariposa Grove, where we declare the Grizzly Giant our new favorite sequoia. On the way out of Yosemite, we see the Wienermobile drive by as we leave Mariposa. It is somehow the least strange thing that's happened.