Upper Cathedral Lake to Lyell Canyon
Although I’m sure word of this plug will never reach them, I have to say, whoever invented the Buff…..genius. Right up there with sliced bread. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check them out here. Last night was super cold, and I generally sleep hot. So I was ‘mummified’ in my sleeping bag wearing my buff to keep warm. Made getting dressed particularly painful.
Today would be a mostly flat day, descending a bit to get to Tuolumne Meadows, and then a very gradual ascent moving through Lyell Canyon, making our way towards Donohue Pass and out of Yosemite National Park. Woke up finally feeling the full effects of being SICK. There was no longer any way to dance around the issue, it was happening. So, I employed my normal technique, minus the DayQuil – ignore it and push through. On a positive note, the blisters I had developed day one, after draining them a couple times during the days, were finally staying drained and not puffing back up. Ally: 1 Blisters: 0. When we left around 6am, Joey was still asleep. He had said he wanted a few beers at Tuolumne, so we figured we wouldn’t see him again since he’d spend a good chunk of his day there.
Fairly uneventful morning, when we got to Tuolumne, Omar suggested I go through my pack and mail anything home that would help lighten the load, in light of my horrible asthma and being sick. So while he dried out his stuff in the sun (he rolled over onto his water hose overnight and apparently soaked most of his stuff – another win for Ally since I have a small one person tent that requires storing my stuff outside the tent no way for that to happen! His roomy two person tent clearly created a recipe for internal disaster), I went through my stuff with a fine tooth comb. The book I brought and hadn’t even looked at yet? Gone. My PowerTrekk charger that didn’t want to work very well after the internal battery died? Definitely gone. (I think it will work well for weekend trips but is not ideal for extended trips – check it out here) My MSR Whisperlite International stove comes with the ability to switch fuel types, so I put aside the extra adapters I wasn’t planning on needing. A few other odd ends, extra first aid stuff, all heading home. All told, I probably eliminated about 6 pounds of extra stuff, and mailed it back home for my parents to safeguard, and probably wonder if I’d had a mild stroke for mailing home first aid gear and my ability to charge electronics and, therefore, my ability to connect with the outside world on the small chance I actually got cell phone signal. But Omar had a solar charger so I just planned on sharing his.
As we made our way out of Tuolumne, we followed the Lyell Fork into Lyell Canyon. Now I was really in uncharted territory, getting to see things I’d never seen, even from the roads driving around and through Yosemite. Unfortunately, I was also starting to feel the effects of being sick. When I get sick, it’s not normally debilitating. But I do get tired very quickly, and my head gets that foggy ‘off’ feeling. That’s exactly what started happening, and quick. Omar at one point turned around and said that I looked like I wanted to die. He probably wasn’t too far off. He later deemed the look my ‘oh shit death eyes’ – unfortunately I had it often enough that it got its own identifying nickname.
When we stopped for lunch, I quickly put together our lunch of salami, cheddar cheese and crackers, and then took a nap. I hope Omar didn’t have any deep conversations he wanted to have, because he was going to be left disappointed. It was very relaxing, and gave me a little boost of energy post-nap. We stopped at another great little spot along the river an hour or so later to get our hats wet and the death eyes came back and I just wanted to stop and sleep. After a little pep talk from Omar (I would get a lot of these throughout the next couple of weeks), we kept going. Didn’t make it as far as we had hoped, but set up camp around 4:30, seeing increasing clouds and thinking we might actually get some rain. We found a fabulous spot by the rushing river. One of Omar’s goals was to fall asleep next to the sounds of the river, since he listens to the ‘white noise’ of water at home. Thankfully, we got to experience that on plenty more than this singular occasion. We didn’t get any rain, but I was still happy to be stopped for the day!
The menu for the night? Delicious! It was ‘cheesy lasagna’ followed by a dessert of vanilla pudding with bananas and nilla wafers. In my overly ambitious pattern, I decided to dehydrate all of our food for dinners, desserts, a few breakfasts, and jerky. It took months of prep, and was a definite learning process, but the result was great! It was so fabulous to get camp set up, our home for the night, and have comforting, real, filling food for dinner. It was worth all the trial, error and effort and I will continue to do this for future backpacking trips!
We hung out for a while after dinner and had some heart to heart conversations. Omar hadn’t told me at the beginning of the day, but the third day held massive importance to him. According to his spiritual advisor, I wasn’t going to make it past day three. I guess that’s why he had kept our time at Tuolumne as short as possible! He had informed my mom that my asthma was really bothering me, and she offered to have dad come get us. We had already left Tuolumne hours ago. So, I made it past the first big hump – the first bail-out option. Omar told me he had faith in me that I could do this – he wouldn’t have been willing to come with me if he didn’t think I had it in me. We talked about his challenge on the trail – learning to realize that for me, this wasn’t the walk in the park that it was for him so far. He said it was exciting. He had a front row seat to see someone develop their ‘IT’. That deep drive to strive for greatness and overcome obstacles. So far, I was pushing through and showing that I have it. Time would tell if I’d continue to impress.
That was the first moment I was truly thankful to have Omar with me for reasons other than having someone to share the adventure with. He was going to be my rock during this process. I was WAY out of my comfort zone, and that was okay. Days later he said that he wasn’t ‘good at sympathy’ – but he’s stellar at knowing how to help someone pick themselves off the ground and keep moving forward. It reminds me of that old saying if you give a man a fish, you feed them for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. I’ll take learning how to operate and thrive outside my comfort zone over having someone pat me on the back and feel sorry for me any day.
Being sick sucks, but I could still put one foot in front of the other and would eventually get over the cold. Mount Whitney – here I come. But first, we needed to conquer Donohue Pass tomorrow! We were still about a half day behind our original schedule, but confident we would make it up at some point.
