9/13/2023
Section: Milepost 1003.6 to 979.3
Total Trail Miles: 1957.9
Distance: 25.6 Miles
Moving Time: 12:43 hrs
Elevation Gain: 3777 ft
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It was chilly this morning, the nights are starting to cool down. Being at around 10,000 feet probably isn’t helping either though, to be honest. Despite the cold we were up and at it pretty early. It’s starting to get more important to start early to make the most of the shortening days. It’s nicer to hike out of the dark then into it.
Today is an exciting one. We are finally making our way into the last of the 3 big National Parks in California - YOSEMITE! I grew up in California and have been to Yosemite probably 30-40 times in my life but this will be the first time hiking across it. I feel like it’s been pulling us south since we crossed the border and today is the day we will finally cross into the northern boundary.
The stage today starts with a 5 mile climb out of Walker Meadows, briefly following the West Fork of the West Walker River before turning east slightly and winding through a series of low hill tops and small lakes. The climb tops out at 9500 feet at the border of the park through Dorothy Lake Pass. From the pass the path makes a long descent, taking about half the day and dropping 1500 feet in 10 miles, following Falls Creek the whole way to where it bottoms out at Wilma Lake. The PCT then begins a steep climb, crossing Tilden Canyon creek and climbing to a saddle about 1000 feet above the lake then descending that same 1000 feet down into Thompson Canyon. The trail repeats this fun little undulation to go over another saddle and get into the Karrick canyon which it commits itself to for the rest of the stage, eventually coming to a rest beside Rancheria Canyon for the evening.
Amanda got a quick start this morning, out ahead of me by about ten minutes. I crossed the sketchy bridge which, despite its twisted metal nature, felt pretty solid. The older couple from Old Station were just behind me and so followed me when I took a clandestine wrong turn only a few minutes into the day. Upper Long Lake Trail crosses the PCT near where we camped for the night and after crossing the creek I got a little high on myself and decided not to check my phone for directions. My battery isn’t exactly low but we don’t know if we will get a recharge in Tuolumne Meadows, so we aren’t using electronics if we don’t have to. The GoalZero doesn’t seem to be even trying to charge off solar anymore, which is truly upsetting. Anyway, about 5 minutes down the trail I ran into some blowdown which seemed a little off for the PCT and decided to do a double check. I also hadn’t run into Amanda and she wasn’t that far ahead of me. I quickly discovered my error and turned around to head back, tipping off the old couple as I went by them. Point one for Amanda, or at least, I was really hoping she had gone the right way.
I caught up to her about ten minutes later as the trail wound through a series of gorgeous lakes. The sights just keep getting more epic. I let Amanda know what a strong and intelligent woman she was for not getting tricked by the trail crossing. I was also very relieved because I wasn't sure until I saw her that she had not kept on going down the other trail. We crossed into the park at 9:40 - that’s right, I checked my watch for this one, and were treated to an incredible granite basin view of Dorothy Lake. We stopped at a granite shelf overlooking the lake and had a mid-morning snack and snapped a picture in front of the boundary sign before carrying on.
I can’t really say all that it means to me to be back in this park. As I said, way back in this blog, I grew up in Salinas and my parents brought me up here almost every year. I remember getting to leave school early on a Friday, getting in the camper and making our way up to Tuolumne meadows or somewhere nearby in the park. Of all the spots on the trail, even in the North Cascades, this park is probably the one I have spent the most time in. It felt, in no small way, like coming home and a huge smile spread across my face as we made our way down Falls Creek thinking about all the great memories I have here.
The descent down Falls Creek is incredibly mellow… almost annoyingly slow. I have to admit that, given an option for grade I would almost always pick a slight uphill. Like, almost imperceptible uphill - those are the perfect grades and I gotta give it to Oregon, because that entire stage had the most. In any case, we headed down… and down… and down. Falls creek was gorgeous and so still that you could readily pick out the sleek brown outlines of trout making their way through the pools. We saw almost nobody as we cruised down through the lush green river valley around Falls creek. “This is annoyingly pleasant,” I quipped to Amanda as we made our way out of the morning and into the afternoon.
Eventually we made it to Wilma Lake where we took another break. I think I can honestly say this place has me at a loss for words. I’m tired of finding synonyms for gorgeous and beautiful and awe inspiring but everywhere you look you are surrounded by paradise. No other way to say it. Shortly after leaving Wilma lake we crossed Tilden Canyon creek. The creek crossings are now much more manageable than when we were here in July but the mosquitos… those are terrible. Got a great video of Amanda crossing the creek and then we began a series of two ridge crossings, each a thousand feet up and down. The granite here makes for these canyons running south to north in this section of the park and you have to kinda skip across them which is super annoying. Adding to my annoyance was the fact that the bottom of my foot arches are killing me. The trails here are very hard packed and in a lot of places you are just walking on rock so I think I'm still adjusting to it. The good news is that the packs are lighter which is helpful.
We crossed the second saddle and descended into Kerrick Canyon as the light began to fail on us. We turned due east after the descent and started making our slow climb up Rancheria creek in the dark. We were pretty battered given the late day altitude gain and Amanda eventually asked that we call it. I had located a few options on FarOut up ahead that I thought would work and directed us to the nearest one. Probably for the best because the headlamps won’t last forever.
We stopped on a beautiful granite outcropping overlooking Rancherita creek. Or, at least, I think it was beautiful. In the dark I really couldn’t see anything. We made some ramen for dinner, adding packs of chicken to it, and ate, commenting on the day. We are 5 days into an 8 day stretch and are pretty fatigued. The packs are lighter now but they’ve taken a toll as we hauled them into the high country of the Sierra. We are sleeping in more and our speed has dropped to around 2.3 miles an hour. If you are targeting 25 miles days this starts to almost take more hours then there is light, not to mention that we are sleeping in a bit more. Add to that, most of our electronics are starting to die and we still have 3 days to go. Hoping we can charge in Tuolumne meadows, but we will see.
All-in-all though, it’s great to be in Yosemite. It was a gorgeous day and we are both so excited to be here. As with all tough days on the PCT, a fresh start is just one sleep away and we passed out pretty easily looking forward to another day in the granite paradise.
