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Leaving the Pleasant Valley Campground northwest of Bishop one  morning we came up over the hill to a beautiful panorama of sunflowers, rainclouds, mountains and sunshine.

The pictures speak for themselves, I think.

When we came back 2 weeks later, the peak had passed…

~Rick

Our Mount Dana hike indicated that we might need more mileage under our feet before heading into the backcountry.

A year ago June, when our Massachusetts friends Jim and Nadine were here in CA for adventures, we saw that they had a pretty good Yosemite guidebook called “Yosemite, The Complete Guide” by James Kaiser. We got one, had it with us, and picked out Cloud’s Rest for our second hike. Kaiser gets pretty excited about Cloud’s Rest: “savvy Yosemite connoisseurs know that 9,926-foot Cloud’s Rest offers better views in a shorter distance with mercifully fewer crowds” – compared to the Half Dome hike. Hmm, 14.4 miles rt, 2,200 feet up – OK, kind of harsh but we’ll bite.

Up early at camp in the Mono Basin, drive to the Sunrise TH, do what we can to bearproof the truck (which consists of cleaning up the interior of the front; the campah is so stuffed with good food it’s hopeless), grab our packs and we’re off. Pleasant morning, nice and cool, somewhere before the first switchbacks two different pairs of hikers blew by us like we were standing still.

Oh well, we’re happy for them and too mature to be competitive at this point in our lives.

Later, on the switchback climb, when we passed both groups and never saw them again until after we had been on top of Cloud’s Rest for some time, there was absolutely no high fiving or fist bumping between Carol and I, as it’s not nice to gloat over passing younger hikers that don’t know how to pace themselves – right?

Miles and miles of hiking through the trees. Let me branch a little on trees – I love trees, I completely appreciate all the good things they do for us, the animals, the earth, but I do not love hiking through the trees as I want to be able to see something around me besides another damn tree. Must be why I have such an affinity for the desert and alpine environments. As for that  “better views in a shorter distance” thing – according to the guidebook writer – seriously, dude, 7 miles of hiking through the trees on the way to Cloud’s Rest compared to climbing up the Mist Trail past Vernal Fall and mighty Nevada Fall on the way to Half Dome – I don’t think so. In fairness, the views from Cloud’s Rest are worth the (long, long) trip.

Finally we spotted Cloud’s Rest (through the trees) and began the last climb up toward the top. Breaking out of the trees (finally!), the views are indeed awesome. On our right, far below, it the entire expanse of Tenaya Canyon and the glacially carved apron dropping down to the canyon is breathtaking. Ahead, we can see Half Dome (and the cables and the mobs climbing the cables) and Yosemite Valley.

I’ve never been anywhere in Yosemite where I could see so much of Yosemite.

We had lunch, took pictures of everything we could take pictures of, had a nice chat with a few folks including a Kiwi that we insulted by asking if he was an Aussie (chill, dude, at least we didn’t ask if you were a Brit – not that there’s anything wrong with being a Brit, but they are touchy about being misidentified…).

More folks arriving, time to leave.

Heading down the hill, hot and dusty, Carol says “thanks for getting us up early!” – yeah. At this point, we start noticing the sad faces headed up the hill in the sun – why do people dress in black, wear mountain boots (for winter mountaineering, sure, for a casual hike, no) and start late? Speaking of clothing, a few people made a comment about my sunsuit, including my hat – I said “You must not have had your first skin cancer biopsy yet” which pretty much seemed to get the point across quickly.

It was a long, long way back, but eventually we made it. I kept myself going by dreaming of how that cold beer was going to taste and how the alcohol was going to numb the pain. Pain – my knee was happy; my back was not. We’re going to have to figure that one out before strapping on a backpack…

Cloud’s Rest pictures here.

We’ve been climbing gym rats for most of the summer, as I’ve had a several month flareup in my arthritic knee which I’d like to think is behind me. Fortunately, bouldering and toproping do not seem to aggravate the knee, so I have had plenty of entertainment.

We packed our gear and headed for the Sierra with the thought of bagging another California Fourteener – either Mount Russell or Middle Palisade.

Since we live nearly at sea level (180′ according to my GPS; close enough to sea level, high enough not to drown when the Arctic ice caps and all the glaciers melt), we always attempt to get some altitude acclimatization under our belts before heading alpine with our packs.

Mount Dana is my favorite test piece – it’s convenient, it’s killer (~6 miles rt, 6200 feet of elevation change, better than 1000 feet altitude change per mile hiked, tops out above 13,000 feet), and I love the views from the top. Basically, if we can’t cruise Dana, we’re not really ready for a backcountry Fourteener. The trail to Mount Dana starts east of the road directly across from the Tioga Pass ranger station – go through a small parking lot and pick up the prominent use trail.

Knee brace, hiking poles (loaded for bear as I hadn’t hiked much for months, and nothing like Dana for – well, a long time) and off we went, enjoying the morning sunshine, flowers, marmots, pikas and (mostly) solitude. You’ll likely not be alone on Dana, but it won’t be anything like the Disneyland atmosphere of Yosemite Valley.

All went pretty well, at least to the Marmot Hut (what I call the pile of rocks just over a break in the climbing roughly 1700 feet up) where we stopped for a snack and a rest. From the Marmot Hut, we headed east toward the big pile of talus and scree that constitutes the western slope of Dana. Picking our way through the talus (there are ducks everywhere, choose the path of least resistance and go – as long as you’re moving up, you’re doing the right thing), Carol started experiencing some altitude sickness (nausea). It was bad enough that she wanted me to go on without her, but – we’re a team and we either peak together or not at all. Several stops, then 30 feet from the top she felt done and then one of our impromptu hiking compadres pointed out she had done 98% of the work (more like 99+%, but  why dither); she gathered herself and we were on the peak.

I was pointing out some of  the landmarks visible from the peak (Mono Lake, Boundary Peak in Nevada, White Mountain) and Carol’s hiker friend (Clyde Gillette, Lepidopterist and Hiker Extraodinaire) says “That’s Boundary Peak? I’ve climbed that like 3 times. And I climbed White Mountain last week.” As it turns out, this guy is 82 years old, from Salt Lake City, and said he was the founder of the Utah branch of the Sierra Club there.

This made us feel better about getting our asses kicked on the hike by an 82 yo man. One can only hope to be doing what he’s doing at that age.

Side note – later in the trip, at the White Mountain ranger station, we found an incredible poster of the Sierra Eastside – here’s a link to the artist’s online copy. If you get a chance, buy one – it’s awesome and quite  inspirational. It points out 8 of the California Fourteeners, too.

Lunch, pictures, peak register, general hanging out and then we headed down the mountain. Just so you know, even though it’s an out-and-back trip, it seems to be at least twice as far back as it is out. 3,000 feet of steep downhill – I hate downhill.

My knee seemed OK, but now there’s a new weakest link – my back. Bad enough that we decided we weren’t ready yet to head into the backcountry with packs.

After a rest day, we planned another ambitious hike – not as much altitude, but plenty of distance – Cloud’s Rest in Yosemite.

Pictures from Mount Dana.

After we left Red Rock Canyon NCA, we drove to Death Valley for our annual Desert Pupfish visit. We love them because they’re small, energetic, focused (on reproducing) and – survivors. We took a walk along Salt Creek and there were hundreds of them – I don’t know if we’ve seen that many in past years. If you want to see them, you need to go real soon, because Salt Creek will dry up soon and they’ll all expire 🙁  But – they’ll provide a great bounty for a lot of other hungry animals in the area.

It was a little toasty in DV for our taste so we headed for Lone Pine, but then, because we had a pair of Carol’s climbing shoes to get resoled, we headed to Bishop (where we get shoes resoled at The Rubber Room; they have a mail-in service, too). We spent the night at Upper Gray’s Meadow CG and in the morning went on up into Onion Valley just for sightseeing. At Onion Vally, we met two guys off on a winter peak bagging expedition and two other guys who were putting on skis to do some backcountry skiing. I asked them if they didn’t know about ski lifts, but couldn’t detect a sense of humor. Continue reading → Post ID 1589

We were headed  for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but when we arrived, the day was so beautiful we went for a hike along the coast instead.

There were some pretty impressive swells coming in. The first thing I did was to go out on some rocks to get closeups. One particular swell looked really impressive, and sure enough, it broke on the rocks I was standing on and I got soaked. Carol managed to photograph the festivities. Good thing for waterproof cameras.

On a sobering note, this happened just recently.

Pretty pictures here. A nice break if you’re  in snow country…

~Rick