Yosemite National Park 2007

The Longest Hike Ever | 14 May 2007

Well... not our best day. We hiked from Rancheria Falls to Lake Vernon which was 10.1 miles on the toughest terrain I've ever hiked.

We started our hike at 8am and hiked up 1100 ft. on switchbacks for about 2 hours. It was about then that my feet started to hurt. We finally got to Tiltill Valley which was pretty cool, but very wet. We stopped and had lunch.

We continued through the marsh to the bottom of our next climb. This time it was 2800 ft. up on switchbacks. Chris sounded like he was going to die with each step. We were so tired that we were stopping every minute and taking a 30 second break.

Along the way (and this is probably the most demoralizing part) we saw no less than five people we passed on the trail who told us of the two bears they just saw. AAAAARGGH! We never saw any bears.

So anyway, after passing all of the meadows that the bears might have been in, I was pretty depressed. Even the snow that we encountered gave me no joy. It became yet another obstacle, not a chance to go sledding like I'd planned.

To make a long story short, we then hiked down 1100 ft. of rocks, found a mosquito infested campsite and we are both too exhausted to eat/move.

We are both too tired after 8.5 hours of hikeing to cook and clean so we ate two cliff bars each and are going to bed soon. Hopefully before 8pm.

One more thing. I guess today hasn't been the best, but it has been the most challenging hike (by far) that I've ever been on. Also, as I'm writing this, a black tailed deer has been watching me for the past 20 minutes. I think I'm on his turf. He/She has been less than 20 ft. away.

Another good thing about today is that because we made it so far along our route, we should be able to stay here tomorrow night and have less than 4mi. hikes each day from here on out.

Locations Visited: Mather

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