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Okay, okay, okay…

…this trip was supposed to be documented in days…not weeks!  Life has been keeping us extremely busy, so please accept my apologies.  I won’t make any more promises, and I won’t throw out any more excuses.  It is what it is and it will be…whatever.

Just in case, I’ve included links to the prior Yosemite posts at the bottom of this one.  I’ll do that for each future Yosemite post as well.  If you need a refresher, click away and go back in time…

For now, let’s talk about Day Two.  Day Two wasn’t really Day Two…it was Day Four.  But it was Day Two from a hiking point of view, and after our Mt. Hoffman warm-up, we set out for Vogelsang.  Vogelsang Peak sits at 11,516 feet.  We started at the Rafferty Creek trailhead near/in Tuolomne Meadows (elevation about 9,000 feet give or take).  The guidebooks list the hike to Vogelsang Pass as “strenuous” — our trek would take us to the pass and then up to the top.  Good thing we “warmed up” on Hoffman.

This was a two-dayer, folks.  Full overnight gear in the packs with clothing for cold weather. We were going up.

At the start, the weather was beautiful…head fake!

Yeah…that’s me.  The Florida boy.  I brought my own little bit of sunshine with me in the form of board shorts.  As you can see, the weather at the start was incredible.  In fact, the weather for the whole hike and trip was incredible…albeit a little chilly up on Vogelsang (you’ll see…).  Paul Schmeling and the Dog are waiting patiently in the background while John snaps the moment for posterity.

Off we go!  The hike starts off relatively mild.  The elevation gain is manageable, and the views are amazing.  Here’s our goal –

Notice how jackets have already been busted out.  Yeah…it was starting to get chilly.  Oh, and check out the packs: Smitty’s is deceiving (John classified it as “dense”…don’t let the size fool you), and Paul is bringing his queen sized mattress just to make sure he’s comfortable overnight.

Up, up, up we went.  Mutants (like John) make this stuff look easy, but I gotta tell ya’ (as I have numerous times in prior posts already)…climbing UP when you’re at any kind of elevation is “challenging”.  John planned this whole trip for us, and he planned it incredibly well.  Our base camp was “at elevation” meaning we could sleep at 8,000 to 9,000 feet every night.  This makes the climbs more “doable”, but no amount of expert planning prepares neophytes (like Smitty, Paul and me) for the actual doing.  You gotta suck a lot of wind to get where you wanna go…

Check this out: one of the High Sierra camps at the base of Fletcher Peak.  Vogelsang would be to the right in this view (when you’re standing there) –

High Sierra camps are amazing.  Most of the white “buildings” you see are really tents on platforms.  The camps are very popular because campers get to enjoy the hike “to” the peaks, but they get to stay in relative comfort once there.  Obviously these camps are popular (and full).  High Sierra camps feature “real” food, bathrooms, and even showers.  None of these amenities are technically available to those of us passing through, but the good folks that staff the camps are generous with their time and any “extra” provisions.  While munching on blueberry pancakes (courtesy of Thom at the camp), we were encouraged to use the bathrooms and fill our Camelbacks with water.  I know…bathrooms and pancakes don’t sound like a big deal from the comfort of your living room.  But trust me…when you’re humping a heavy pack up the side of a damn mountain, the pancakes are a God-send and the bathrooms run a close second.

Thom was also a good source of information. As John writes in his journal, “Thom gave me some beta (“critical info” is the translation for you newbies…Jay) on the climb up Vogelsang and told us where we could camp up by the lake.  He told us to stay in the wind to keep the mosquitoes at bay, but our spot on the ledge was a bit too windy and blew away our tents just as we were setting them up.  This was a bit exciting for all of us and really got my adrenaline pumping.  We found a more sheltered spot by the lake and made camp…”

(Yeah…tents blowing off an 11,000 mountain will get your adrenaline pumping, alright.  Thankfully we recovered everything…)

The lake.  John is referring to Vogelsang Lake — the spot we planned to stay for the night.  I have a ton of pictures of the lake at ground level, but those aren’t as fun as this one: here’s the lake from up high (near Vogelsang Peak) taken the following day.  Fletcher Peak (the mountain in the background of the High Sierra camp shot) is to the right –

That’s Paul and me taking in the sights.  You can’t see it, but our campsite is way, way down on the left side of the lake.  This picture was taken after our unsuccessful bid for the top…

“What?  You didn’t make it to the top?” you’re asking…

…and the answer is ‘no’.  We got close, and it was very frustrating to fail in our attempt, but let me explain.

As you saw in the photos, despite the calender reading “July”, there’s still snow on the ground at elevation.  Our attempt at the top began early in the morning — very early.  With temps dipping considerably overnight, the snow on the ground is really better described as “ice”.  Later in the day, after the sun has had a chance to beat down on the mountains for a bit, the snow will get softer and even a bit slushy.  Soft and slushy snow is easy to navigate.  Ice is not.

So on the morning of Day Two (in trek days…not trip days), we set out to conquer Vogelsang.  And we hit ice.  Lots of ice.  Here’s John thinking “WTF?”  We’re literally about 400 feet from the peak, and we were stymied.

Getting UP the ice wasn’t the concern.  We found all kinds of plausible ways to navigate the ice going UP.  It was the DOWN part of the equation that concerned us.  Even though we were only 400 feet from the top, when it came time to head back down, one slip on the ice would mean a fast descent.  Really fast.  Really fast descents imply lack of control (getting the picture?) and lack of control means bouncing off of things that tend to be harder than one’s head (i.e. boulders like the one John is standing on).  And believe me…even though it looks like that particular boulder would quickly stop one’s uncontrolled descent (and it might), chances were good that after a good bounce, one’s uncontrolled descent would continue.  That would mean more bouncing off of things generally harder than one’s head.  In fact, we learned later (while reading the Emergency evacuation reports at our base camp) that one poor soul did exactly that three days before our attempt.  He bounced his way off the peak and down a thousand feet or so before he finally came to a stop.  Unfortunately for him, his “stop” included two broken legs.  A helicopter evac-ed him out.  Ooopsie…

From John’s journal: Thom may have thought we had ice axes and crampons, but this chute looked a bit dangerous”. Understatement!

More of the killer snow…

That’s Paul and me standing in a rare “safe zone”.  If we found a way to put padding on all the rocks, we might have continued up.

After a lot of deliberation, we decided “the mountain will be there tomorrow”.  We wouldn’t be there, of course, but that’s an old saying that keeps hikers alive (courtesy of Dave Jopp, a friend of John’s that’s even more of a mutant).  It means we can always go back another day.  The mountain ain’t movin’…

But nonetheless, were we frustrated?  How frustrated?  I don’t know…you tell me…do I look frustrated here?

Yeah…I do.  I look old too (but that’s another post).  Paul looks happy. Paul is always happy.  Sometimes you wanna throw his happy ass down the mountain, but that too is another post…

(Paul was a great addition to our group!)

So!  What was it like overnight?  Cold.  Cold!  Here’s the morning garb as we get ready to set out.

My shorts weren’t bringing any Florida sunshine, lemme tell ‘ya.

The hike took us two days, a lot of “up”, the corresponding “down” the second day (which hurts just as bad as up, believe it or not), and we covered about 20 miles.  Not bad for three rookies led by a mutant, right?

More to come!

Earlier Yosemite posts:

Yosemite — Mount Hoffman and early travels
Yosemite — a taste