Yosemite Backpacking 2019

[Greg]

Day 2  Vogelsang Trail Junction to Evelyn Lake



All night it was cold. Serious Cold. What the fuck cold. I can’t feel my face cold. I’m glad I bought the three season, good to 20º sleeping bag, because it was nearly that cold. I slept with all my clothes on including my hoody. My legs seemed to be fine in my shorts.

At first I figured I could sleep with my head peeking out of the bag. But that became a no-go. I found that if I pulled the bag over my head and slept on my side, I could create a small pocket of space within which not induce a tremendous sense of claustrophobia.

I was hip enough to bring an inflatable pillow with me. The only problem was the inflatable pillow was crap and impossible to sleep on. I used my stuff sack full of clothes as my pillow for the rest of the trip.

But I was warm deep in my down cocoon. Warm and toasty. Until at 11pm, my bladder decided it would be more comfortable if it were empty. Bladders know nothing about the cold. They only know full or empty. They prefer empty and bitch about it until they are empty.

I contemplated how much longer I could hold out against the bladder. Not long. I wasn’t going to go back to sleep until it was appeased.

So, I crawled out of my warm and toasty space. I dug around and found my sandals. I unzipped the tent and went to find my cathole. The moon was full and bright overhead but did nothing about the freezing temperature. So bright, I could see my distinct shadow as I walked into the trees. I did my business and raced back to my tent.

It took some time and shuffling to get my feet all the way to the bottom of the bag and that little pocket of space around my face in the sleeping bag. It didn’t take too long before I was warm and toasty and asleep.

Old bladders are the worst. At 2am I awoke again to my bladder making it’s presence known. I went through the decision tree again of how long I could hold out. Not long. It was more unzipping and shoe finding and shadow seeing and out in the cold peeing. If this was going to be the benchmark for the trip, it was going to make for a very uncomfortable trip.

At 5am, it was the bowels turn.

By 6am I gave into restlessness and decided to break down my tent and get ready for the days hiking. I methodically deflated my sleeping pad and rolled up sleeping back. Frost had accumulated on the underside of my tent’s rain cover, so I had to dust off the frozen water before I rolled it up.

The rest of the camp started to stir and strike their gear. Jersey was having a terrible time with the cold and taking down his tent. The metal rods froze his hands when he touched them and he couldn’t hold them long enough to fold them up. I eventually grabbed a few to help get his tent packed up. Jersey needs to get some more body fat.

All of our water bottles had frozen in the night so it was tough getting enough water for the coffee drinkers. The fields of grass around us were covered with white frost.



But the white frost can do an amazing thing if you know what to look for. On a previous trip through the McGurk Meadow off the road to Glacier Point, the Queen and I had come across a similar situation. If the morning light hits the frozen water on the grass just right, it creates tiny sparkling rainbows.

Sure enough, when sunlight hit the field, the rainbow sparkles appeared. I called everyone over to have look. The group had never seen anything like it. I figured my work here was done and headed back to the car.

Or not.

We got all our things into our backpacks and headed out to the trail.

DM continued to suffer a headache from his altitude sickness. The best thing I’m sure we could  do was spend the next couple of hours climbing switchbacks to a higher elevation. So, that’s what we did.

Along the way, we met a ranger who wanted to see our wilderness permit. I also mistakenly asked this jogging couple how far they were going and they said “32 miles” I should have hit one of them in the ankle right then.

For one of the few times on the trip I was in the number 2 position on the hike. Jersey was just climbing away ahead of me while Mrs. DM nursed DM up the trail. It was a long couple of hours of waiting for god to take me away.



We eventually reached the turn off to the trail to Ireland Lake. As everyone had pointed out, the sign marker giving the distance to the lake lies. It’s not 3 miles to the lake. It’s actually only 1 and a half miles. Yep, we were taking a break from backpacking to take a 3 mile walk to see a lake I had suggested to see only because it had the same name as my favorite travel destination. If you are thinking Greg is an idiot, your are correct.

We dumped our packs behind a fallen tree off the trail. We also had placed our bear cans in a separate location to keep the bears suffering from Hyperphagia from finding them. The bears were currently desperate to fill up on food for their hibernation.



Now, it was a terrible to add mileage to our hike but it was also a great idea. Ireland Lake was stark and beautiful. The closest guess I could come with  for the reason they named it Ireland Lake was because the granite surrounding the lake almost looked like the limestone of Ireland. But not really. The mountains were too high and there was way too much snow.

Ireland Lake sits at 10700 feet, the highest point on our trip. You can imagine how DM was feeling by the time we reached the lake. Along the way we saw a bunch of deer and this weird plane or rocket formation overhead. Since it was Sept 11, we assumed it was the end of the world and we were all doomed.





We returned to the junction and grabbed our packs and food. By this time, I was falling further and further behind because of my picture taking. Yep, that’s it. I’m way behind because I take pictures.

Mrs. DM had to be the fastest of all us. I think I only saw her briefly at the start of hikes and when we’d stop for breaks. Jersey had good pace but he’s just skin and bone and muscle in his twenty year old body. Now, Mrs. DM would constantly tell us to go ahead of her because she was going slow or wanted to be in the back. But she would always pass us.

We hiked up a little bit more before eventually descending down the trail to Evelyn Lake. Or at least what we thought was Evelyn Lake. I know DM and I both hoped the first lake we saw was our destination. But alas the first lake was not Evelyn. It wasn’t even listed on your NPS issued map. Sadly, we continued hiking and not stopping.



We made it to Lake Evelyn and my most grumpy event occurred. It was about an eight mile day and a lot of it was uphill. I wanted to stop and put down my back. (Stupid pack. Why did you choose those colors. I’ll come up with better put downs in the final edit) So, when we came to the stopping point and saw that Mrs. DM and Jersey had decided to continue on to some unknown destination, I was irked to say the least. The rule was when you come to a fork in the trail you stop and wait for everyone to catch up before proceeding. Not this time. Off they went.

I knew why they left us. I knew they were looking for camp sites. But I was going to be angrier if we walked all the way to their location and then had to walk back because they had found nothing.

Things were a little tense when I finally reached the two of them. I barked. They reacted. Mrs. DM said she had discussed it with Jersey so that made it all right. 

We find a camp site in amongst the rocks of Evelyn Lake. Another group was already set up there in what was probably the prime position. They had chairs and were fishing in the lake, bringing in trout.



We exchanged the cold temperatures for blowing wind. Also, there weren’t many trees around us, so we could see for miles around us. This also meant when the moon rose moments after sunrise, we could see it clearly through the walls of our tents.

[Drunk Monk]

I finally finished my leftover trail snacks - a gorp mix with extra dried bananas.  I've been nibbling on it as an office snack.  It reminded me of the trip.  I'm both happy and sad that there's no more.

[Greg]

I found some Dried Apple and Dried Banana snacks in the pantry. They gave me a good flashback.

Plus, I have photos.