Patty and I went on a backpacking trip in Tuolumne the week prior to Labor Day. We were planning on doing the High Sierra Camp loop (approximately 45 miles) over 3-4 days. This area of Yosemite requires the use of bear canisters. However, if we agreed to stay at the designated campgrounds which contain bear boxes, we could just use regular stuff sacks or ursacks to carry our food. There was no way I could fit a bear canister into my small pack, so we opted to use the bear boxes and stay at the camps. The bad thing about that is that we HAD to make it to the camps at the end of each day instead of just stopping and setting up camp wherever we wanted.

There are 6 camps:

Tuolumne to Vogelsang (7.5 miles) – net elevation gain of 1500 ft
Vogelsang to Lake Merced (7.5 miles) – net elevation loss of 3000 ft
Lake Merced to Sunrise (10 miles) – net elevation gain of 2000 ft
Sunrise to May Lake (8 miles) – net elevation gain of 1500 ft
May Lake to Glen Aulin (8 miles) – net elevation gain of 1500 ft
Glen Aulin to Tuolumne (6.5 miles) – net elevation gain of 300 ft

So our plan was to do:

Day 1: Tuolumne to Vogelsang (7.5 miles)
Day 2: Vogelsang to Sunrise (18 miles)
Day 3: Sunrise to Glen Aulin (16 miles)
Day 4: Glen Aulin to Tuolumne (6.5 miles)

I arrived at Tuolumne around 8pm on Mon. I checked in and then ate the dinner I had brought in my car since there was no electricity in the tent cabin. After storing all scented items in the bear boxes, I went to the tent cabin (basically metal poles with canvas). There are 4 beds per cabin with blankets. Candles were provided for lighting, and a furnace/firewood/newspaper were provided for warmth. I burned a fire for over 4 hrs. Patty radioed me on the talk-about around 12:30 AM and I went out to meet her and show her where our cabin was.

Day 1 started with us sorting out gear. Then Patty’s back started spasming out, so she needed to be bedridden for about 1/2 hr. After I went and picked up our permit and some advil, Patty felt her back was ok enough to go. We figured since we were doing a short day, we could see how she feels during and after the hike and go from there. We arrived at camp around 3 PM. Had lots of time to kill before sunset. Set up our tent, and then hung out at Townsley Lake until about 5PM. Had an early unsatisfying dinner – we both put too much water into our food. Waited until about 7PM before our last bathroom outing and then went to bed.

Day 2 started with my alarm going off at 5:30 AM. We wanted to get an early start, but the sun wasn’t even up yet, so we slept abit more. We got up around 7AM and left camp by 8AM. We hauled ass to Lake Merced. I just wanted to get there because I knew we had 10 miles of uphill after that. We made it there in less than 3 hrs (estimated time was 4.5 hrs). We took our time the rest of the day. We thought we were making pretty good time for a couple of reasons (1) Patty had been counting steps and consistently walked 1800 steps per mile and (2) The couple we came across confirmed Patty’s theory. We ended up taking longer and more frequent breaks because there was no rush to get to camp to just sit there. Sometime during the day, our calculations were way off, because at the end of the day, we thought we had 1/2 hr left when we really had 2 hrs. We ended up making it to camp by 5:30PM which was just enough time to set up our tent, filter water, cook/eat, and pop my blister.

Day 3 ended up being our last day. We ended up hiking 10 miles back to Tuolumne instead of going to Glen Aulin. Patty was not interested in another long day, and I didn’t care either way. It was probably better that we finished early since my body just didn’t want to move very fast that day. The previous long day was starting to take a toll on my body, and downhill sections became painful. Thank god I popped that blister the day before tho! It was during this day when we realized that all people overestimate how quickly they hike. When they say “you have 4.1 miles left (dunno how they could be so exact), we really had about 6 miles left. When they say “it should only be 20 more minutes,” it ends up being another hour. When we hit Tioga Road, we realized we had 3 more miles to go until we got back to our car. But Patty saw the shuttle bus sign as we started our hike, and there was no hestitation in our decision to sit and wait for it. We were seriously going to hitch a ride at that point anyways.

It was a great trip. Great weather – clear skies with no clouds. More importantly, there were no mosquitos! There were no injuries, and the scenery was beautiful. I would like to go back and do the entire loop one day. Next time we’ll do Tuolumne to Lake Merced in day 1. Day 2 will be Lake Merced to Sunrise. Day 3 will be Sunrise to Glen Aulin. That way we can alternate hard and easier days.

Here’s the pics.

Posted by Judy at 4:31 PM.