High Sierra Loop Part 2

Last year Avery, Aaron, Morgan, Andrew, and Karissa intended on doing the High Sierra loop starting at Vogelsang and ending at Glen Aulin. Shortly after Merced Lake, they called an audible and shortened the trip – cutting out May Lake and Glen Aulin and heading out on the JMT to Cathedral Lakes. This was a great decision since the ranger said Glen Aulin was dry (it was late in the season on a low water year) and because Cathedral Lakes was beeeeeautiful. In continuation, they decided to go back and finish the loop. Avery got the walk-in permits 15 days in advance – getting their second choice of the Glen Aulin Waterwheel pass through permit. This meant that they weren’t allowed to camp at the Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp, but could camp anywhere 1 mile further down the trail.

Tioga road opened on May 27th, just in time for them to drive in Friday night to spend a night at elevation before hiking. Avery and Morgan picked Aaron up after lunch. Aaron had ordered a new Nemo Dragonfly 2 during the REI Memorial Day sale and was hoping it would be delivered well before the 7pm delivery window. Alas, there was no UPS truck arrival before they were to leave. After picking up Aaron’s friend Sherman, Aaron got a text from Mom saying that the tent had been delivered 🙁 . Avery was also trying out a new tent. Andrew had finally convinced her to ditch the 6lb half dome tent (not Andrew Approved) and get a 1.8lb trekking pole tent (Andrew Approved).

This was the first trip to the Sierra’s for Morgan’s Tesla Model S. Avery got range anxiety when they finally got to Tuolumne Meadows with less than 70 miles remaining.

Day 1 – May 29

They got up bright and early and got ready at the Lambert Dome parking lot. Avery started the morning off right with a nice little brown out of the Tuolumne River. She called herself the Queen of the Honey Hole.

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The Blue Shirt Brigade helped Sherman pack his backpack. This was Sherman’s second backpacking trip and first trip lasting more than 1 night. They said that they wouldn’t laugh at anything he brought and then proceeded to laugh at the 4 long sleeve shirts he packed. It turned out that Aaron had made a typo in Sherman’s packing list!

Morgan and Andrew shuttled 1 Tesla to the Sunrise Trailhead while Avery and Aaron picked up the permit and a bear can at the Tuolumne Wilderness Office. The ranger that led the informational session tried to convince Avery (and the other backpackers) to drink their dishwater in order to be better at leaving no trace. Avery was not convinced!!

After leaving behind most of Sherman’s toiletries and long sleeve shirts, the Blue Shirt Brigade + Sherman was ready for adventure!

It was a nice sunny day to be out hiking in Yosemite. The day’s agenda included a leisurely, downhill stroll to Glen Aulin. At the first creek crossing, Morgan demanded that they take a break (so that he could fish). He caught a small trout and the group was allowed to proceed.

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They stopped for lunch on the Tuolumne. Aaron and Sherman ate their heaviest, bulkiest rations – tortillas with pizza sauce and pepperonis. Aaron called this “adult lunchables”. Andrew and Karissa ate their sandwiches. Avery and Morgan went fishing. Avery swooped Morgan’s spot and caught two brown trout in quick succession. The sunny, warm weather suddenly took a turn for the chilly. Karissa had to cut her lunch nap on the sunny rock bank short when the sun decided to go away. Avery layered up. Morgan kept fishing. Finally, they got too cold in the wind and left the lunch spot early.

A few scattered rain drops fell as they descended toward the Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp. Storm clouds gathered above. The air smelled like rain.

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While they intended on camping near California Falls, they were feeling like making camp a bit earlier and found this gem of a campsite in the wooded area a mile past the High Sierra camp.

While setting up camp, the group mused about the name “Glen Aulin”. Aaron said that glen was a wooded area and that Aulin was like “ballin”, but spelled wrong. So it meant ballin’ woods. While writing the trip report, Avery did some Wikipedia-ing and found this:

The name of the valley, meaning “beautiful valley” in Irish Gaelic, was suggested by James McCormick of the United States Geographic Board to R.B. Marshall of the USGS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Aulin

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After setting up camp- Avery, Aaron, and Andrew all took a nap. Morgan went fishing. Karissa and Sherman went to “the beach” which was a sandy area near the river. Avery woke up and did a little fishing herself. She got some strikes on her lure from a Big’n! At some point, it seemed like it wasn’t a good idea to be walking around with a fishing pole with all the thunder and lightning going on. She turned in to the tent. Morgan refused to go into Avery’s new tent even in the rain, calling it a “downgrade” for him (since he didn’t get any of the weight savings but got less head room and foot room). Aaron tested his theory of no-pants-in-the-rain.

Morgan made a fire and when the rain stopped, everyone else popped out of their tents to hang out by the fire and cook dinner. They kept the fire going until it got dark and then doused it extremely thoroughly. As the ranger said, “don’t be the one to burn down the forest this year.”

Day 2

The next day, the plan was to day hike to Waterwheel Falls, go back to camp, pack up, and then move to either Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp or McGee lake. With lunch and water (and a 1lb trout pan for Avery), the group set off for Waterwheel Falls. The first obstacle was a quarter mile of what became known as “the swamp”. This section of trail was completely underwater and was navigated by walking along a series of downed trees. Avery and Aaron both really enjoyed this section of hiking.

The “swamp” led to California Falls which was a gorgeous section of water. Predictably, the group lost both Morgan and Avery to the fishing opportunities. They agreed to meet up at Waterwheel Falls.

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Avery caught all the species of trout in the river – Brown, Brook, and a Rainbow! Having completed the trifecta, she headed down to Waterwheel to meet up with the rest of the group. Morgan followed about 5 mins behind.

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It was worth waiting to see Waterwheel Falls in full splendor!

When Avery and Morgan caught up to the rest of the group, they had already finished lunch and had been taking in the scenery for the past 45 minutes. They headed back to camp while Avery and Morgan tried to catch lunch and use Avery’s trout pan that she carried all the way to the lunch spot and hadn’t used. Avery got a lunch sized brown trout on her first cast and fried him up in some ghee. Jealous, Morgan kept fishing and finally caught a brown of his own. Then they could leave. After some bushwacking, Morgan made it back the the trail and the two started the arduous journey hiking back up to camp.

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When Avery got back to camp (she lost Morgan to a fishing hole between the swamp and camp), Andrew had already packed up his tent. They packed up the rest of the tents and hiked back to the High Sierra camp. Once they arrived, there was a great water feature right next to camp, but also about 10 other groups camping there. With mosquitos flying in the air, they decided to pass on the backpackers campground and go on another 0.8 miles to McGee Lake.

McGee lake was a shallow, weedy lake full of pollen and bugs. The area next to the trail was all sloped. It was looking like the gamble to pass on the High Sierra camp may have been bad. They hiked all the way to the end of the lake and nada. Exploring a bit up the hill from the trail, Morgan found a fire ring- finally a decent campsite! Aaron, Andrew, and Avery pitched their tents around what Avery dubbed “Friendship Rock”.

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After eating dinner, they broke out the Mahjong cards. Aaron had photocopied the “cheat sheet” from the family Mhing game. This consisted of an abridged set of Mahjong hands with various levels of “credits” assigned to each hand. They taught Karissa, Sherman, and Morgan how to play this light version of Mahjong. Aaron wanted to play “for ounces” where each person would get ounces from his pack corresponding to how many credits he got. He said that he would give Avery the dirty toilet paper bag to carry if he won! Luckily for Avery, Karissa refused to play for ounces.

Day 3

The plan for day 3 was to hike up to May Lake High Sierra camp. Shortly after leaving McGee lake, increasingly larger patches of snow started to appear. This led to countless little creeks that wandered next to and across the trail for the majority of the 6 mile trek.

All of the ice patches on the ground gave Avery an ingenious idea. Morgan had been suffering from back pain all of day 2. They filled up one of the dirty water bags with ice and secured it to his back with the hip belt of his backpack.

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Karissa dunked both feet while crossing Cathedral Creek. She laid her shoes and socks out to dry during the lunch break.

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After lunch, the trail became less wooded and more granite vistas. It also got much steeper.

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Aaron led the way with his classic mantra “No Stop Till Top”. Avery took lots of stops to take trip report photos. Even though this was the most strenuous hiking of the trip, it was the most worth it!

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At the top of the peak, Aaron wanted to go off trail to the top of the ridge. He convinced Avery to go with him. They were rewarded with a great view of Tenaya and Raisin Lake!

The flat area around Raisin Lake was marshy and looked to be high in mosquito potential. Morgan did not find any fish in the lake. The group moved on for May Lake.

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One final set of switch backs later, the trail opened up for some alpine meadows and a short gradual decent to May Lake. Upon seeing the lake, Morgan was immediately struck with the compulsion to fish.

Everyone else continued on to the south side of the lake to set up camp. Andrew had already set up his tent in the choicest campsite with a fire ring and several rocks suitable for playing Mahjong.

Andrew read his kindle while Avery and Aaron set up their tents. Then, Andrew and Karissa went to check out the ridge behind the campsite. It was a great view! They could see Tenaya Lake, Cloud’s Rest, and Half Dome.

Morgan returned from fishing with 2 brook trout for dinner to find that camp was already set up. Since it wasn’t yet dinner time, we put the fish on ice in one of the ice patches. Morgan went back and caught another one. Somehow he convinced Avery to get her hands fishy by gutting and cleaning his catch. He then used the trout pan and a very liberal amount of luxury ghee to fry the fish over the open campfire. It was so decadent.

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After having a lot of fishing success, Morgan and Avery gave their rods to Aaron and Sherman. Aaron took a break from coaching Sherman to catch a nice brook trout. Sherman was surprised when he caught a fish minutes later!

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There were several marmots living in the trees and downed logs around the campsite. They were extremely bold. One tried to inspect Sherman’s bear can. Morgan chased it off and it SCOOTED off to it’s hidey-hole at the base of a tree. It stayed there for hours patiently waiting for the bear can to become unguarded. Aaron and Sherman had dinner on the ridge with the company of another marmot.

Back at camp, down to one well-working filter, they played a few games of Mahjong while baby-sitting the gravity Sawyer. Aaron and Avery did not manage to get an eight credit hand. Sherman and Karissa owned! Aaron said that he enjoyed playing Mahjong more than Star Realms. Avery thought maybe he was still a little salty from their last backpacking trip.

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Day 4

Avery and Morgan got up at 5:30 and packed their tent. Morgan went fishing and caught a fish on the first cast with Avery’s homemade single hook gold spinner. Avery woke up everyone else to get going!

While waiting for everyone else to finish packing- Morgan, Aaron, and Avery took the opportunity to model their Christmas Mellys from their cousins. They really liked the high neck style (especially for protecting from mosquitoes!).

Andrew (The Blue Streak) and Morgan decided that they would take off ahead of the group to go get the cars. They had to run down to the road, another half mile to Sunrise, and then pick up Watson at Glen Aulin. Andrew told the rest of the group he would pick them up where the trail met the road instead of at Sunrise trailhead.

Avery, Sherman, Karissa, and Aaron had a leisurely stroll down from May Lake. However, once they arrived at the road there were 100s of mosquitoes and no Teslas. Sherman put on his puffy to keep from being bitten, but had to keep them off his legs. Karissa paced the side of 120 waving her arms trying to keep the bugs off. She accidentally flagged down a grey unaffiliated Tesla and a ranger.

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Twenty minutes later, Andrew and Morgan arrived with the cars. The mosquito crew was so thankful! Due to the elevation loss between Tuolumne and Groveland, Morgan’s Tesla only lost 10-20 miles. They made it to Groveland no problem! It turned out there was no need for range anxiety!!

Another successful trip in the books! Can’t wait for the next one.