Happy Isles (Yosemite Valley) Trailhead to somewhere along Sunrise Creek

14.5 miles hiked

After over a year of anticipation, preparations, general butterflies and freaking out, my friend Omar and I started on the John Muir Trail. My dad was a huge help and dropped us off in the park at o’dark thirty (we started walking at about 4:15am). A man with the patience of a saint – I’m not sure how I would feel being recruited to drive to Yosemite for less than 24 hours, be awoken at 3am with no breakfast, drive into the park, and wave goodbye to a family member that more than likely has at least one or two screws loose for even considering such a venture.

Have I backpacked before? Of course! Do one-night quick weekend trips in the Santa Cruz mountains count? The types of places that yes, you need a tent for, but there is running, potable water and pit toilets. I’m not sure why I ever thought that was comparable to sleeping in a different place every night, digging holes in the ground, and spending time filtering water 2-4 times a day, but there you have it. The extent of my ‘real-world’ preparation and practice. One of several things I have going for me diving into this is my book smarts. I was an English major. So all my JMT books, maps, checklists, menu guides, itineraries were highlighted in various color-coded rainbows, annotated and memorized. Again, clearly reading a few books would obviously be a suitable substitute for real world experience. I would later find out this was both correct and incorrect.

Anyways, back to day one! My bright-eyed and bushy tailed day one plan was a 15 mile hike up and out of Yosemite Valley, all the way to the Sunrise High Sierra Camp. About 5000 feet in elevation gain. Since Omar and I (and another friend, Amy) had hiked Half Dome last summer, the first 6 miles of the trail would be a repeat. This was actually my 4th time up this segment of trail, thanks to two failed attempts at half dome and the successful one last June. We both just wanted to get through it and move onto new views. Even though this was the John Muir Trail, it didn’t really feel official since it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before. Don’t get me wrong – going up Vernal and Nevada Falls is gorgeous. But I don’t think any photo I take of the falls will compare to the one I took my first time coming back from Half Dome, with thunderstorms rolling into the valley. So, we trudged through this section with not as much speed as either of us had hoped.

I have Exercise Induced Asthma. I remember when I was in middle school and the doctor said I had this type of asthma, my parents thought I was full of it – coming up with something to get me out of Monday PE (Running Day…still gives me nightmares!). In addition to asthma, I just was not physically where I wanted to be, or should have been, given a year of having the opportunities to get ready for this hike. I’m overly ambitious when I choose my goals and plans, but the followthrough on the physical preparation is always lacking. It’s my pattern. This time was no different. So, with a much larger pack (about 40 pounds give or take) than I’ve ever taken on this trail, I started huffing and puffing my way up and out of the valley.  I should take a moment to tell you about Omar. He’s a personal trainer (although in retirement at the moment) for bucket list enthusiasts. That’s how we met – I hired him to help get me ready to finally conquer Half Dome. So Omar was basically skipping up the trail as I for the first, and certainly not the last time, started questioning what I had gotten myself into. I was also feeling a very slight tickle at the back of my throat. I kept this fact to myself. My dad was getting over a cold when he dropped us off. There was no way I was getting sick. My stubbornness wouldn’t allow it. If I just ignored it, it would go away of its own accord.

We finally made it up to the top of Nevada Falls. Omar expressed his annoyance at all the people passing us. Not a direct jab at me and my speed, but more a nod to his A+ physical personality type. That person who doesn’t just do something to say they’ve done it. It’s only worthwhile if you go in with the decision to be the best. I had to remind him that a) this was going to be a marathon, not a sprint and b) most of those people had 10 pound day packs headed for Half Dome, not Mount Whitney over 200 miles away. When we got to the ‘Half Dome Junction’, where going to the left will take you the 2 remaining miles to Half Dome and going to the right would be new, John Muir Trail territory, we ran into a volunteer park worker with a paintball gun. Sitting by her were 4 backpacks and a lot of feathers. Looked like a goose had been massacred. Turns out a mystery group of hikers had ditched their packs, presumably to hike Half Dome, and a bear came along finding their packs fascinating. At minimum, one sleeping back was the casualty, but it was tough to tell what else was ruined. The park volunteer was waiting around to make sure the bear didn’t come back, and for the group to come back to their belongings. We moved on, but now I was extra aware of bears. Intellectually (again, book smarts!) I know what to do if a bear comes after my bear canister at night. Make noise, and yell at it to go away. But I have never seen a bear in the wild, so it was definitely something that, until I came face to face with it, I would be nervous about. Because knowing my luck I would attempt to scare a mama bear, which is pretty much the one thing you never want to do: mess with mama bear and/or cubs.

We continued on, and I was looking for a specific junction. There is a junction shortly after Half Dome, where the left leads you to Cloud’s Rest – another peak on my bucket list, but far off the John Muir Trail. And, in my research and reading other hikers’ blogs, apparently a junction that is easy to take the wrong path. So when we saw it, I gave it a wide berth. According to my Harrison maps, the JMT would follow Sunrise Creek. Too bad we couldn’t really see a trail. So, after looking around a bit, Omar found a trail that roughly went parallel to Sunrise Creek. So, we began to climb in the heat. And climb. With my asthma kicking into full gear (we’d already climbed well over 3000 vertical feet for the day so, living at about sea level, now hiking at about 7000′), I was miserable. This didn’t seem right. We should be following the creek, slowly climbing, not dying of heat exhaustion. I was needing to stop and rest and catch my breath every couple tenths of a mile. It was slow going. Then, an older gentleman came clomping down the trail from above. Seeing our packs, he asked where we were going. So I exclaimed “we’re on the JMT!” – to which, I got a puzzled look for response. He said he was heading down from Cloud’s Rest. But I skipped that junction. Clearly this guy was crazy and I tried, nicely, to tell him as much. But he was very patient, and we both pulled out our maps, Omar gave us our coordinates from his GPS, and lo and behold…..the crazy guy wasn’t so crazy. Befuddled was a nice way of putting how I felt. I KNEW not to go that way, so how did that happen?! Demoralized that I had gotten us lost on day one, we turned around. Now, thankfully, my slow pace actually worked in our favor so we hadn’t lost too much ground. With the back and forth, we probably went 3 miles out of our way. Getting back down to the junction, it all became clear. The JMT crossed the creek and followed parallel to the creek on the other side. When Omar found a trail that paralleled the creek, he found the Cloud’s Rest trail I had tried so hard to avoid! Chalk one up to inexperience.

Now well after lunch and into early afternoon, I was feeling pretty low, and started getting in my own head. As we trudged along, I knew there was no way we would make our goal camp. We were still at least 6 miles away from that, and another 1500-2000 feet in elevation gain. And the creek was low. Like, stagnant water and mosquito heaven low. We decided we would camp along the creek when we found moving water. But we kept going and going for what seemed like forever and still didn’t find any moving water. So I sat down to rest for a bit, feeling overwhelmed. A couple of heavy sighs later, Omar said ‘you know, it’s OK to cry if you want to’. I can’t be sure, but I’m fairly certain he lived to regret saying those words. Little did I know this would become a little theme of the trip, my crying for various reasons. I don’t really consider myself a crier. I am most prone to crying when I laugh, or watch one of those Superbowl Budweiser commercials with the horses and dog. So, it began. What if my breathing didn’t get any easier? It was far worse than I ever imagined it would be, and I was mentally prepared for it to be a big obstacle. How can we get through this if we got lost less than 10 miles in? How are we going to finish in 19 days if I can’t keep up with my mileage plan on day ONE?!

After a self-pity party for a few minutes, I dusted myself off, and we kept moving. We found a nice spot and set up camp along Sunrise Creek. Still not much moving water, but I was physically and mentally done for the day, so we called it. Time to set up camp for the first time! Before leaving, we decided to divvy up the work. He would set up our tents, sleeping pads and bags, as well as hide our bear canisters/cooking gear. I was in charge of the kitchen. I wandered up and down the creek and finally found a little trickle of moving water, so filtered water for dinner, as well as refilling our reservoirs for our backpacks.

As I got dinner ready, our crazy older hiker friend that saved us from an even more horrendous afternoon of uphill hiking walked by. We would have never guessed it from before, but I guess he was doing the JMT too! He didn’t have a large backpack, so must have been going ultralight. Then, we had our busiest animal afternoon. One large deer decided to go grazing next to camp. And was really interested in our food. It was pretty neat that this deer was so unconcerned by our presence. Until he got within about 5 feet of me and our dinner and I finally had to shoo her away. A little later, a coyote decided to meander along the upper edge of our camp! After a delicious dinner of ‘taco mac and cheese’, we both went into our tents, but were continuing to chat. All of a sudden Omar shouts ‘Bear!’ I jumped up, ready for action. I hadn’t heard anything pushing our food around, but I was SO ready to defend it. I looked out the tent and sure enough, saw the silhouette of a bear amble along the edge of camp, and walked right by our bear canisters. Walked across the trail, across the creek and off into the forest. A little anti-climactic, but at least I’d now seen my first bear in the wild!

I knew we had a decent amount of mileage to make up for how slowly I had moved day one and the extra time we lost being lost. Inspecting my feet, I had three blisters for day one. None of them were debilitating, but, in true can’t prepare for everything fashion, they were all in different places than I had previously gotten them in these boots so it was surprising. One on each big toe, and one on my left foot, on the arch. Better than the heel blisters I was mentally prepared for! Now that I was laying down, I could feel a headache coming on, and coughed a few times. Clearly just remnants from the tears and asthma earlier in the day. Definitely not getting sick. I forbade it.

But you know what? Despite the rough start to our journey, we (I) survived. We were at camp, we were well fed, our bags hadn’t been ripped to shreds by a bear, and, as many times as I’ve been to Yosemite, it was the first night I had ever spent in the park. And so begins a great adventure, ready for a full night of sleep under the stars and rest up for Day Two!