Day 49: CS975 to CS1004 (28.5 miles - 1003.9)

June 25, 2016 - Today I probably had the worst luck one could have on trail.

The day started off with a downhill on steep snow which made for slow hiking and a few falls. Finally got down to the creek then hade to walk on this narrow ice walk along the creek, very scary, was afraid I was going to slip and fall into the fast moving creek at anytime, glad I had my microspike and ice axe.

After the scary ice walk I came to a very fast moving creek crossing. I had done so many I felt very confident, Blue had no problems crossing. I took one step in the fast moving knee deep water and slipped on a rock and almost completely submerged. While trying to get upright in the water I lost one of my trekking poles. This was a big lose for me as I love hiking with the 2 poles so I knew it was going some getting use to with just one. However everything in my pack was able to stay dry as all my stuff were in dry bags that were inside a garbage bag. However my camera in my side pocket got wet. I got up and tried to go the same route and slipped on the same rock so I decided to go the safer route. I just needed to move upstream just as little as it was an easy hike across, I blame that on my ego.

Well I thought my camera was fine but I tried to use it later and wouldn’t work. I let it dry for a few hours and it started working but the memory card wasn’t reading but luckily for me I had uploaded all my pictures back in Mammoth so if I can’t get my card to work I wouldn’t have lost a lot pictures. Hopefully I can recover the pictures I took between here and Mammoth. Luck for me I had another card so I was able to keep taking pictures with my camera.

About an hour later I came to another creek crossing which I had no issue with, the problems came on the other side. I needed to fill up water but there was no good spot to collect the water so i tried to hang onto a steep rock but that didn’t work out very well as I sled down not once but twice. In the process I got more scraped up each time I fell and even tore my filter bag, I had a backup plan so I could still filter water. Had I walked another 0.1 I would have had the perfect spot to filter water.

I finished the day off with hiking out of Yosemite National Park. I hope to be back one day and hike into the Valley and summit Half Dome.

I had planned to camp with Blue for the night but he stop a few miles earlier than I wanted and the area was covered in bugs as it was right next to a creek so I decided to move on in hopes of find a less buggy area. The bugs never let up so I ended up camping near this cool looking waterfall. I quickly ate my dinner, pacing around camp and never stopping long enough for the bugs to land on me. Then I was off into my tent and away from the bugs.

I achieved a big milestone today as I crossed the 1000 mile mark.

Dorothy Lake

1000 mile mark