08-21-2022, 12:40 PM
After Emerald Lake, we went past 1000 Island lake, which felt a little shy of 1000 islands. I figure there were 200 maybe, but as Bri observed 200 Island dressing doesn't sound as tasty.
This is were the JMT and PCT merge - two of the most majestic trails on the west coast. Stacy dreamed of doing the PCT when she was younger. It goes from Cali to Canada and takes months to traverse. Generally, anything over a week requires food restocking so you have to hit places where you've sent food packages or stowed them. That's way beyond our scope.
Then there was another storm. A bigger storm. With hail. HAIL! I was with the 20s and we huddled under a small grove. The thunder was intense and the trails became raging creeks with run off. Stacy had gone ahead.
Stacy doesn't like thunder. Years ago, she was very close to a lightning strike whilst backpacking, a near death experience, so thunderstorms are triggering. I was worried she was freaking out so I made a mad dash in the storm to catch up to her while the 20s remained under tree cover. I kept my walking staff horizontal and stayed low, darting over the trail stream, trying to stay covered and not to slip and fall on my ass in the mud.
Stacy had hunkered down near another couple that had been backpacking parallel to us. She was fine. The storm eventually broke, the 20s caught up, and we forged onward.
We made it to Rush Creek which we would later discover is also a resort casino just outside of Yosemite, not at all like this pristine area. We were averaging 8 miles a day. We started to settle into a camp but then Tara spied a nicer camp area so we moved. And that's when the second storm hit.
In our rush (at Rush Creek) to move our tent, disaster struck. We snapped the spine pole. I did my best to rig it back up again with medical tape but it was impossible to properly repair. We all hunkered down in our tents and much to our dismay, our tent leaked. Tara's tent is relatively new. The tent Alex borrowed from us is brand new. Ours is an old tent too, and much to our dismay, the waterproofing had decayed. After maybe an hour of huddling in our tent, the rain tarp soaked through and the bottom floor was getting drenched. In the middle of the storm, I reset the tent stakes (those are new) to widen the span of the rain tarp but the damage was already done. There was room in Tara's tent (which she shared with Bri) so Stacy moved over. Her bag and sleeping pad got wet. Tara said it was the first time she ever heard her mom swear, which astonished me but in retrospect, maybe not so much.
I was left in the old leaky tent. I centered my sleeping bag because the middle of the tent was the least wet. I remember being curled in a fetal position in the soaking wet tent thinking 'this is my fucking vacation?'
But thankfully, the top surface of my sleeping pad remained dry. The storm subsided to a light sprinkle, enough that we could all get out and make dinner. We all went to bed early and perhaps it rained more, but I slept solidly on my little pad island, relatively dry and warm.
This is were the JMT and PCT merge - two of the most majestic trails on the west coast. Stacy dreamed of doing the PCT when she was younger. It goes from Cali to Canada and takes months to traverse. Generally, anything over a week requires food restocking so you have to hit places where you've sent food packages or stowed them. That's way beyond our scope.
Then there was another storm. A bigger storm. With hail. HAIL! I was with the 20s and we huddled under a small grove. The thunder was intense and the trails became raging creeks with run off. Stacy had gone ahead.
Stacy doesn't like thunder. Years ago, she was very close to a lightning strike whilst backpacking, a near death experience, so thunderstorms are triggering. I was worried she was freaking out so I made a mad dash in the storm to catch up to her while the 20s remained under tree cover. I kept my walking staff horizontal and stayed low, darting over the trail stream, trying to stay covered and not to slip and fall on my ass in the mud.
Stacy had hunkered down near another couple that had been backpacking parallel to us. She was fine. The storm eventually broke, the 20s caught up, and we forged onward.
We made it to Rush Creek which we would later discover is also a resort casino just outside of Yosemite, not at all like this pristine area. We were averaging 8 miles a day. We started to settle into a camp but then Tara spied a nicer camp area so we moved. And that's when the second storm hit.
In our rush (at Rush Creek) to move our tent, disaster struck. We snapped the spine pole. I did my best to rig it back up again with medical tape but it was impossible to properly repair. We all hunkered down in our tents and much to our dismay, our tent leaked. Tara's tent is relatively new. The tent Alex borrowed from us is brand new. Ours is an old tent too, and much to our dismay, the waterproofing had decayed. After maybe an hour of huddling in our tent, the rain tarp soaked through and the bottom floor was getting drenched. In the middle of the storm, I reset the tent stakes (those are new) to widen the span of the rain tarp but the damage was already done. There was room in Tara's tent (which she shared with Bri) so Stacy moved over. Her bag and sleeping pad got wet. Tara said it was the first time she ever heard her mom swear, which astonished me but in retrospect, maybe not so much.
I was left in the old leaky tent. I centered my sleeping bag because the middle of the tent was the least wet. I remember being curled in a fetal position in the soaking wet tent thinking 'this is my fucking vacation?'
But thankfully, the top surface of my sleeping pad remained dry. The storm subsided to a light sprinkle, enough that we could all get out and make dinner. We all went to bed early and perhaps it rained more, but I slept solidly on my little pad island, relatively dry and warm.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse