08-23-2022, 02:00 PM
I was avoiding coming back online Friday. I came back to 200+ personal emails, 200+ KFM emails, and 180+ YMAA emails, plus a lot of odd texts and direct messages. Hard to say how I even function with this much e-noise. I was only gone for 6 feckin days!
Donahue pass marks our entrance into Yosemite. There's one harder way in, I'm told, coming off a trail from Tahoe, but this was pretty freaking challenging compared to every other time I've entered the park by driving.
The trail down from Donahue pass was rigorous too - would've hated to climb up that. It was beautiful as the foliage returned. We stopped at a small mountain pond guarded by a feisty marmot who seemed to be saying 'don't even come up here.' We noticed an odd odor and we each secretly wondered if we had stepped in mule poop. More on this in the next paragraph. We rested there for a while, enjoying the view, the marmot, and the panorama.
We crossed paths with a ranger who checked our wilderness permits and warned us of a 'problem bear' in the valley where we were headed. Another park worker gave us a bear talk further down the trail. She told us that the bear was last sighted back from where we had just come, munching on a deer carcass. 'You might've noticed the smell' she said. Wait...what? You mean where we took that long break? The bear was likely just over the marmot guarded rise munching away. Perhaps that's what the marmot was trying to tell us.
No more rain. Just beautiful clouds and sun. The weather was perfect.
The rest of the descent was uneventful. We saw more wildlife - deer, a hawk, birds, so many rodents - and enjoyed our hike. We set up our last camp at Ireland lakes, near to where Greg and I camped on our first backpacking trip together. We nearly froze that night but woke to the most magical frost covered field. Stacy and I recounted that tale to the 20s. Tara had heard it before and was amused to hear of her friend's suffering once more because they had a falling out when his jealous gf blacklisted her from his friends list.
This time it was quite warm and there were plenty of other backpackers (I had to go quite aways to find a good cat hole spot). We gorged ourselves on all our remaining food (we only cooked half of our dinners during the previous rainstorm because it was raining).
Donahue pass marks our entrance into Yosemite. There's one harder way in, I'm told, coming off a trail from Tahoe, but this was pretty freaking challenging compared to every other time I've entered the park by driving.
The trail down from Donahue pass was rigorous too - would've hated to climb up that. It was beautiful as the foliage returned. We stopped at a small mountain pond guarded by a feisty marmot who seemed to be saying 'don't even come up here.' We noticed an odd odor and we each secretly wondered if we had stepped in mule poop. More on this in the next paragraph. We rested there for a while, enjoying the view, the marmot, and the panorama.
We crossed paths with a ranger who checked our wilderness permits and warned us of a 'problem bear' in the valley where we were headed. Another park worker gave us a bear talk further down the trail. She told us that the bear was last sighted back from where we had just come, munching on a deer carcass. 'You might've noticed the smell' she said. Wait...what? You mean where we took that long break? The bear was likely just over the marmot guarded rise munching away. Perhaps that's what the marmot was trying to tell us.
No more rain. Just beautiful clouds and sun. The weather was perfect.
The rest of the descent was uneventful. We saw more wildlife - deer, a hawk, birds, so many rodents - and enjoyed our hike. We set up our last camp at Ireland lakes, near to where Greg and I camped on our first backpacking trip together. We nearly froze that night but woke to the most magical frost covered field. Stacy and I recounted that tale to the 20s. Tara had heard it before and was amused to hear of her friend's suffering once more because they had a falling out when his jealous gf blacklisted her from his friends list.
This time it was quite warm and there were plenty of other backpackers (I had to go quite aways to find a good cat hole spot). We gorged ourselves on all our remaining food (we only cooked half of our dinners during the previous rainstorm because it was raining).
Shadow boxing the apocalypse