Monday, June 18, 2012

Day 58-Magic Makes Short Days

Tuolumne Meadows at mile 942 to Glen Aulin at 948

I had the grand plan to sleep until 8:30-ended up sleeping until 6 a.m.  I got up around 7 to run some town errands before parking myself at a picnic table in front of the general store for the day with a dozen other hikers.

We originally thought we were going to leave around 10 or 11.  We had very good intentions, but then we had to wait to say happy birthday to Nightingale, then eat a little more, and then the three of us packed up.  It was about 1:30 and we were minutes away from leaving when a van pulled up and the driver asked if we wanted any food.  A dozen hikers swarmed to the van.

They unloaded all things hikers love:  cakes, donuts, watermelon, bags of fruit, chips, salsa, lemon aide, orange juice, and beer.  The food filled a table and overflowed to another one.  It became clear very quickly that I wasn't going anywhere very soon.

Around 2:30 Portrait put on his pack.  Opus and I looked at him like he was crazy-there was still food to eat after all. But he took off with plans to go farther than six miles to the next place to camp.  It's hard to know if and when we'll be seeing him again.

Opus, Nightingale, and I left around 4 o'clock-most of the food was gone at this point.  The trail started out on a paved road then a dirt one after a bit.  We sampled the water from Soda Springs-it was a carbonated mineral spring (I thought it tasted bad).

The trail followed a river, crossing it a couple of times.  It was mostly flat, but whenever it went up or down there were stone steps that looked like they would have taken months to build-they were beautiful.  The rest of the time the trail was sand or crossed large smooth rock outcroppings near the river.  In one of the sandy stretches Portrait had written Happy Birthday Nightingale with mini pine cones.  Nightingale loved it.  That was the only sign from Portrait that he was ahead.
Nicest pit toilet on the trail

We made it to camp just before seven-feeding time for the mosquitoes.  They kind of put a damper on such a lovely place to camp.  Lots of people here: thru-hikers and backpackers, but no Portrait.  Some one had a smokey fire going, but it was too much smoke for me to enjoy (and it was still kind of mosquito-y). It will be a good test of my tent tonight to see how well it keeps out mosquitoes.

1 comment:

  1. I've seen that tent. Hard to beieve it would be a shield against mosquitoes or anything else. But it sure sounds like they're a menace.

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