"Holy shit we're actually doing this!!"
Day numero uno. After nearly a year of planning, it's finally here! I can't believe it! Today is the day we start the JMT!
Our packs felt super heavy. "We test drove all of this at home before we left and it did NOT feel this heavy, what gives?? Damn this bear can stuffed with food is SO heavy! Dang, Imma fall backwards at the slightest imbalance. Or face plant. You got my spot? My pack is too heavy, I can't bend down to pick up my trekking poles, can I get an assist?"-- and on and on, poor Daveed had to help me so much! And through it all, with his bigger, heavier pack, with patience and grace, he helped me get my pack on every day, at every break, at every lunch n munch, at every pee stop. Never complaining, what a sweetheart.
Well....we got a late start. What else is new?! This would be a daily recurring theme for the entire trail :) I realized about 300 yards after we started hiking that I had forgotten to pack a contact case. Whoops. Back to the car! OK, lets get started for real this time. But after I use the bathroom at the trailhead, one last time. OK, ready Freddy.
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| Here we go! 211 miles to Whitney! |
We joined the masses of tourists at Happy Isles and started up the Mist Trail. The Mist Trail isn't actually part of the JMT but it meets with the JMT at the top of Nevada Falls. The JMT skirts around the Mist Trail and rather than taking hundreds of steep stone steps up next to waterfalls, the JMT zig zags on switchbacks just to the south, making the hiking less steep, but more dusty and slightly more boring. Daveed wanted to take the Mist Trail up. OK. So we stomp along with our giant packs as the tourists bound past us carrying only small water bottles, if anything. It was already hot. I mean HAWT. My shirt was soaked through with sweat before we even got to the last treated water fountain, which is maybe a mile or 2 down the trail. We stopped to drink some cold water, I splashed it all over my face and soaked my shirt. Ahhhh, it felt good! Then the business started...up to this point the trail is pretty mellow with maybe 300 feet of vertical gain. Then BAM you start up steep stone steps. Last year we somehow did it without stopping to take a break...granted we had a lot less weight on our backs, but I still don't know how we did it. This time, I needed to stop at least 4 or 5 times and towards the top of Vernal Falls I was feeling dizzy! My trail journal said "We took the Mist Trail and it about killed me. Woof."
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| Daveed headed up the Mist Trail |
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| Vernal Falls |
Made it past Vernal Falls and then continued up, up to Nevada Falls. It was great to see the sights again: Half Dome, Mt Broderick, Liberty Cap etc. We trudged past LYV on the dusty, sandy, sun baked trail and then continued up, up towards the junction to Half Dome. The switchbacks seemed endless! My pace was slower than slow and I paused often to drink water from my camelback and would also try to suck in as much oxygen as possible. The sun beat down on us and I somehow managed to coat my entire shirt, and my legs in dirt... Dang it. I couldn't even stay sort of cleanish for a few hours! The dirt clung to the sweat dripping off me every where and the sunscreen made me sticky! This would be something I would get over and not even notice after day 4 on the trail :)
As we neared our destination for the day, Clouds Rest trail junction, giant, black, thundering, menacing looking storm clouds started to roll in and looked like they were headed straight for us. Crap. We hustled as fast as my cement boots would allow up to find the campsite. We set the speed record (only to be broken the day we did the Golden Staircase in a bad storm) for setting up our tent and dived in! And then we waited for the storm to rage. And then we were still waiting, and then some rain sprinkled for about 10 minutes....and then that was it! Turns out the gnarly storm started to go south of us as it approached so we barely even got sprinkled on! Hurray!
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| Hiding in the tent from the non-storm |
After the storm passed we made dinner, I had the most delicious Backpacker's Pantry meal: Pad Thai!! It was so good Daveed bought a bag of it in Tuolumne! We passed the rest of the evening chatting with some duders nearby who were from out east, North Carolina I think. They had come from Tuolumne and were heading out via the Valley the next day. We suckered them into taking a bunch of our extra food, including the better part of an entire package of Daveed's MEGA stuffed Oreo's! We didn't have appetites and didn't have space for the extra food in our bear cans. I also gave away some of my precious gluten free snackies to a gal who was also gluten free. It pretty much made her year.
Our first day on trail was tough! My feet hurt but my ankle felt mostly OK. We knew it would be a very physically demanding day as it's all up, up, up all day long. The elevation gains didn't seem to bother us apart from the usual huffing and puffing that happens even in WI at sea level when I walk up a flight of stairs. It was a great first day, we made it to our goal destination and in really good time considering we got a late start! We were so excited to finally be on the trail and starting our big backpacking adventure!
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| Camp at Clouds Rest junction, elevation 7237 ft |
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