August 3, 2014
"The Golden Staircase Day" "The Llamas" "The Carbon Monoxide Day" "The Soaker Day" "The Non-Functioning Hands Day"
This day would go down as the coldest and wettest day on trail, until the day we summited Whitney. That day was colder, wetter and included lots of pelting hail and terrifying lightning. The Golden Staircase day was pretty miserable, Whitney summit day was actually pretty fun and of course exhilarating because ummm, we just summited the highest peak in the lower 48!! And we just completed the JMT!! "Summiting" the Golden Staircase brought nothing except relief to finally get off a dangerously flooded and loose trail and find somewhere suitable to camp. We would find out later from hikers that a trail crew had to be called in to make repairs to the trail from this day...
Cold. Wet. Wind. Rain all day.
The skies were already cloudy and gray when we woke up. Tiphane and Jackie Ray were thinking of taking a rest day instead of risking the storm. We headed out of camp sort of early with the plan of deciding whether or not we'd head up and over the staircase based on the weather situation once we reached the base.
We stopped several times before arriving at the base of the Golden Staircase to put on various pieces of rain gear, eat a snack and to cross some very flooded creeks and flooded trails! The heavy rain fall had everything swollen! There were a couple crossings where I had to jump across to Daveed who would grab my wrists and then pull/throw me on to the "shore". There were several spots where the trail was just totally flooded, under a foot of water. We negotiated several flooded trail crossings that included multiple stages. From one rock to a log to an island of grass and on and on. We arrived at the base of the Golden Staircase under heavy rain, but no lightning that we had seen/thunder that we heard. That was a positive. We passed the 80lb pack girls who were huddle under a rock, they had decided to wait out the storm. They invited us to wait with them under the boulder as there was plenty of room. We looked at each other and shrugged, "well, we're here, we might as well go up". So we did.
As we started up the Golden Staircase I noticed some really pretty cascading waterfalls, which would turn out to be the trail....! It was totally flooded. We rock hopped, scrambled and climbed our way up. SOOO glad my boots are Gortex-- through all the rain, creek crossings and flooded trail, my right foot stayed totally dry and my left foot only got wet across the toes. Pretty good considering some spots I almost went in up to my ankles. Daveed's feet were wet but we did a good job of avoiding the deep flooded spots, hopping and jumping on higher rocks. I thought we followed a river up the staircase but what I thought was a river, was the cascading waterfall I saw at the base and it turned out to be the trail!! So much water rushing down! When we got up higher the trail was flooded up there too! It was flooded the whole way.
We continued up and came to a few spots where it was actually easier to climb up the middle of the switchbacks instead of rock hopping above the water level at the corners of the switchbacks. Which is where the water was the deepest, around the corners of the switchbacks. I felt safer and more at home climbing up the switchbacks with my big heavy pack and trekking poles dangling off my wrists than rock hopping on loose rocks on the cliff's edge just waiting for my ankle, or a rock, to give out. It was awkward and difficult to climb, but I was more in my element. We eventually got to a point on the trail where it was too dangerous to cross the flooded river in the center of the trail. The rocks around it that were holding the trail up on the side of the cliff were super loose. The water was rushing too fast. A fall here would mean a tumble of a couple hundred feet down a rocky cliff side... We had to find a way around the torrent. Daveed climbed up the middle of the switchback to reach the next switchback and what we thought was the continuation of the trail. He climbed all the way up, with his pack and trekking poles, only to find out that the trail did not continue to the left!! It cut to the right after the next switchback!! Crap. We both held our breath while he negotiated the down climb on the very loose, very wet, very scary rocky cliff side. Even Daveed admitted that it was scary. And that is saying something.
We ended up going down a switchback, one level lower than the raging torrent, negotiating the waterfall crossing down one level and without much issue. Then we climbing up the cliff side until we reached the higher portion of the trail. Unbeknown to us, Tiphane and Jackie Ray were a few hundred feet below us watching us climb and thinking "what the hell are they doing?!!?" When we got to the top of that section I looked down and saw them. We waved and watched them approach fast. They were moving a million times fast than us! Turns out they were both soaked to the skin long ago and decided to just walk through all the water, rather than rock hop to avoid it like we were doing.
When Tiphane and Jackie Ray did catch up to us, we rounded a corner to see... a llama. A llama with a pack on either side of its back. And a dude leading it that was decked out head to toe in rain gear, gloves and a shiny silver umbrella. I blinked a few times and they were still there. I was really seeing this. I was cold, wet, hungry, dehydrated and my hands were frozen. I thought I was delusional. And then another llama rounded the bend, lead by a lady who was also decked out head to toe in rain gear, gloves and a green umbrella. WTF? What the hell were llamas doing on the trail and why the hell were these people leading them DOWN the trail?? I looked at Daveed, then at Jackie and Tiphane. We all had the same perplexed look on our faces thinking WTF?? We moved over off the trail as best we could in the thick, prickly bushes to let them pass. Daveed shouted to the dude that his llama's pack was sideways, off balanced. The idiot tried to pull the llama off the trail and turn it around so he could straighten the packs. He was not successful and the llama ended up taking a step or two down, right into a deep part of the trail that had water rushing down it. The bags slipped under the llamas belly and immediately started to balloon out, filling with water. The lady came down the trail to try and right the bags, all the while I thought for sure the llama was going to get pulled down the side of the cliff from the weight of the water in its bags. After what seemed like forever, the lady undid the straps of the bags and pulled them off the llama. We stood there helplessly watching as there was no way we could get to higher ground to help her, the thick prickly bushes on either side of the trail were impassable. We were 10 feet below the llama on the trail and of absolutely no use. After they got the llama out of harms way and started to drain and unpack the big bags, we started to pass them, asking them where they were headed. "We're headed south on the JMT". Umm, so were we, but they were going the wrong way. Where did you come from? "Lower Palisade lake". They said they "needed to get to lower ground, get a fire started, warm up and dry out". Fires aren't allowed above 10,000 feet (we were around 10,500) but there was no way they were going to get a fire started at any elevation with all this rain. I told them they should not proceed down the trail with the llamas, the trail was even more flooded and washed out further down, NOT safe! After a couple minutes, we continued on, leaving the Llama People to decide for themselves what they were going to do.
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| Snow at higher elevation |
We finally crested the top of the ridge. HURRAY! We could see snow falling at the higher elevations on the mountains that surrounded us. We were glad the temps hadn't dropped that cold where we were. We had only about 1 mile to go until we would reach camp at Lower Palisade Lake. We were all so cold and wet, especially Tiphane and Jackie Ray who had been trudging through the water all day. Daveed was our hero and lead us on, checking in with each of us every so often to make sure we were OK. My hands were totally numb.
As we approached Lower Palisade, Jackie Ray fell in a creek up to her waist at a very wide, very flooded, multiple crossing spot :( Not two minutes earlier she had announced "I am officially DONE with today!"... Thankfully her clothes and sleeping bag stayed dry in her pack. We finally made it to Lower Palisade where many others were hunkered down. We set up our tents in the first flat spot we found, set it up in record breaking time and dove inside to get dry and warm. As I was trying to clip the rainfly to the ground cloth, my fingers completely seized on me. No movement, no nothing. My hands were so cold my thumbs wouldn't work either. I exclaimed to Daveed that my hands didn't work! He told me to get in the tent and start getting warm, he'd finish setting it up.
I got all my wet clothes off, put on my warm and dry base layers, winter hat and then slithered into my sleeping bag trying desperately to warm up. Daveed got the stove out and we boiled water for tea. I held onto the hot mug for awhile trying to unthaw my hands. It took 2 or 3 hours for the feeling to fully come back to my hands! We boiled more water to make some quick hot food: instant mashed taters! Hurray for instant mashies! We both made some and gobbled it down. We hadn't really eaten anything all day and now that the drama of the Golden Staircase was behind us and we were safe, dry and warm, our appetites consumed us. We were both half-lounging in the tent with our bear cans right next to us...I don't think I stopped eating for a solid 45 minutes. EAT ALL THE THINGS!
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| Taters! |
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| Trying to dry everything out |
After finally warming up, it was time to eat some more. Time for dinner!! Daveed got the stove started and as we boiled the water for our food I started to feel really dizzy, nauseous and sleepy...I kept saying "I'm so dizzy, I'm just going to lay down here for a few minutes...I'm so sleepy...I'm so dizzy...I just need to close my eyes..." Daveed realized that carbon monoxide poisoning was probably happening to me and flung open the tent door! Classic! It says very clearly on the stove not to cook in your tent. This is why. Earlier when we boiled water for tea and taters there was no issue because there was a stiff wind blowing under and through the tent, providing plenty of ventilation. Later, as the storm started to die down, there wasn't enough ventilation and I was at the bottom of the tent, Daveed was at the tent door, which was unzipped a smidge. Just enough for him to not be affected. Whoops. I started to feel better after 10 or 15 minutes and we continued on with our dinner prep. Randomly Jackie Ray blurted out "remember the llamas?!! WTF??!!" and we all started laughing. The llamas became our comic relief for the day.
While we were enjoying warming up and drying out in the tent, we heard someone shout something that sort of sounded like "bear". Jackie Ray said "maybe people are polar bearing into the lake!!". Then we heard people yelling again, and they were very obviously saying "bear". We poked our heads out of the tent and sure enough, a small juvenile black bear was cruising around, checking out everyone's camps. It was about 30 feet away from our tents when we first saw it. So Daveed makes some noise and it meanders along and heads over toward the next camp. Tiphane and Jackie Ray were too scared to pop their heads out of the tent to look at it, but when it started trotting away I told them to look and they looked through the safety of the "window" of their rainfly :) This is the only bear Daveed and I saw on trail. Tiphane and Jackie Ray would see another, right next to the trail, near Rae Lakes. We missed it by about 15 minutes! Darn!
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| The one and only bear we saw on the JMT |
As the storm started to break up and die down, people started to emerge from their tents. There were dozens and dozens of people around, the storm had forced us all to stop here for the night. We heard the "ding, ding, ding" of a cow bell...the Llama People!! We stuck our heads out the tent and sure enough, the Llama People were up on the rock shelves above the trail, above the camp spots, wandering around. Jackie Ray says "the effing llamas..." and we all busted out laughing!! What were they doing up there?? Idiots... "remember their umbrellas?!! I mean what was the point?! Everything and everyone was soaked!!". We had some good laughs.
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| Tiphane checking out the storm clouds |
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| Camp at Lower Palisade Lake, elevation 10,616 ft |
