2 Pass Day

Wednesday, July 16

Day 4

Lyles Fork Basecamp to as Lake Ediza trail

15.8 miles

"The thing to remember when traveling is that the trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for:"

~Louis L'Amour

It turned out we are not camped at Lyle Fork Base Camp last night. We were about 50 yards past it. James and Z ended up I'm moving there, after I was already in my tent for the night, because they were worried about getting streams of water through their site later in the night if the rain resumed and picked up.

Today was a long day of hiking 12 hours; 6 AM to 6 PM. The climb up Donahue Pass was not as bad as I feared. Once I broken out above treeline I found myself in a beautiful meadow with a stream widened out into a pond. The water for the pond cascaded down from a waterfall that must've been close to 300 feet high, not all in one drop but over a series of cascades. The trail continued upwards, well to the right of falls. I ended up crossing over the stream just before began its fall. Somehow at this point I managed to lose the trail for the first time today; not the trail behind me, but the trail in front of me. I ended up doing some class II scrambling over rocks to gain a small knob where I was able to refind the trail.  I am still not exactly sure how I lost the trail. Once I quickly got back on the trail it climbed through open ground to the Pass at 11,073 feet.

Just as I crested the summit an older gentleman crested it from the other side; “Dr. Livingstone I presume?"  We chatted a little before I headed down. The pass also marked the end of Yosemite National Park and entrance into the Ansel Adams Wilderness, within Inyo National Forest.  The descent off the Pass to the Marie Lakes Trail was uneventful except for almost stepping on a mama ptarmigan who was right on the trail. As I came around a curve in the trail, I saw a baby bird in the middle of it, then heard its mama calling. It took me a full minute to realize that she was directly on the right side of the trail, not two feet from me. She she let me take their picture and then I walked a little way back up the trail and detoured around them, before continuing on my way.

I ran into James and Z again at the Marie Lakes Trail Junction. I stopped to have lunch and soak my feet in the stream before moving on. Doing my math late last night I did not realize that it was only about 6

miles to Marie Lakes Trail junction so after a little break I kept going. James and Z passed me about 20 minutes later and that was the last I saw them today. On the way to Thousand Island Lakes I passed numerous hikers heading in the opposite direction, including one Facebooker sporting the group bandanna. As I got closer to the lake the skies on three sides of it began to darken, and I knew I was in for another afternoon of rain.

I reach the lake at 2 PM and tried to do a quick sketch of the lake with Mt Banner in the background, but was not able to finish do the rain starting. Mt.Banner looked incredible surrounded by dark clouds; something straight out of Lord of the Rings. I got a quick bite to eat then decided to head on down the trail.

For the next four plus hours the rain came down. I had on my rain jacket but not pants. From Thousand

Island Lakes I worked my way up and over to Garnet like. As it was still raining I decided to push on as I did not want to put up a tent in the rain. As I passed over the bridge at the outlet of Garnet Lake I made a big mistake, and followed the faint path leading down the rock to the left. I continue to follow the faint path through and down rocky ravine. It was a little sketchy at times,doing class II moves over slick boulders. When I got to the bottom I ducked under some trees and checked my map. Yup I took the wrong trail. I should have gone straight once over the bridge, rather than turning left like I did. I let a sign talking about camping at the lake, threw me off. So once again I went back up the slick ravine to the lake.  

The Wrong Way Ravine

Once back on track and I continued to descend in the rain. I was trying to be aware if I was getting too cold. I feared getting hypothermia.  I  continued along the trail through a steady downpour.  Not only was I worried about stopping and getting hyperthermic but there were no good camp spots to be found.  After what seemed like a couple hours of walking I finally came to the first camp spot, where I had my first unpleasant and only negative experience on the trail.

As I neared the first decent campsite I caught up to a Korean man man who I had seen earlier in the day,as part of a  threesome of hikers. Since I was in no hurry I plodded along behind him until he met up with 1 of his friends  friend and I passed them both. By this time I was getting quite cold and tired and wanted make camp.  At the first site I had seen in two hours,A relatively large flat wooded area, a third Korean was standing guard told me “our site” and I should move on. I was ready to kill him. We had all been hiking and wet for hours and the site was big enough for me to set up away from them. I was fuming!   At this point I had two options and decided just to push on,rather than be the ass that I wanted to be.  I did not want to stay there and be pissed off at these guys.  I must admit that I have many unflattering comments that I really want to make to this group of foreigners.

I hiked down for another 20 minutes or so so until I came to the lake Edster trail Junction, where I found several camping spots and decided to stop for the day.  My goal was to set up the tent without getting soaked.  Luckily this mission was accomplished quickly and I crawled into it got undressed and crawled into my sleeping bag.  I snuggled down deep into it in for an hour or two trying to warm up.  Eventually I popped my head out and realized the rain I heard was just dripping from the trees. I decided to get out and make dinner. While the evening was still cool it was dry.  I found a great spot out in the open to have dinner on some rocks and watched the river flow bye.  Full of food and warm crawled back into the bag for the night.