After doing a little shopping last week and picking up a new pack and pad, I decided I needed to give them a try. I got an REI Flash 65 and an Exped Synmat.
I had hoped to get on the road Friday morning at 8am so that I could get to the Lone Pine Interagency office to get in line for a walk-in permit at 11am. I overslept and didn't get on the road until 10am. Meanwhile, I called the permit number and they informed me that there weren't any overnight permits available. No problem....I got there at 1pm...asked again if there were any open permits...Nope. So I asked for a Meysan Trail permit and got it no problem. I asked where to park as I had seen the sign saying "meysan parking" before and it pointed to a gated road. The three people there insisted that I needed to park at the main portal parking lot. When I said "there's a sign for meysan parking down by the lower campground", one guy actually got a little peeved with me and said that I needed to park in the main parking area because they have bear boxes there. My reply really pissed him off. I said "I don't need a bear box". He was quite insistent "yes you do, you need to put anything human scented in the bear box". I replied..."uhh, well, I cleaned my car out of pretty much anything human scented or otherwise, I have everything in a bear vault and it's coming with me". Anyway....short story long....they were wrong about the parking. That little turnout by the blocked road, that's the Meysan trail parking.
From there, you hike through the campground and then there is a fair hike through the cabin area. Most of it up a steep hill. The cabin road is a circular road. When you see the "one way", "do not enter" signs, go up that road (right). It is shorter than going straight. The trailhead is well marked.
My goal for day 1 was to make camp at Grass lake and then go to Meysan Lake on Saturday. It was up in the air if I was going to spend a second night there as my son is having is 12th bday party late today (Sunday)(his bday isn't until Wednesday, so no, I wouldn't feel guilty about not being there in the morning).
I left my car at 2:09pm and got to the trail head at 2:38pm. The lower part of the trail is pleasant with some long traverses and a few switchbacks. There is fantastic cellular coverage for most of the hike to Grass Lakes. This plays a role in this little trip report. About two hours into the hike I decided to check in. Called my wife and son...chatted for a couple of minutes and said goodbye as they had much more important things to do on a Friday evening. Then I called my Mom. For some reason, in the past couple of years she's completely forgotten that I am 48 years old and sane. She has been watching my SPOT track and she's telling me on the phone that I am hiking on very steep cliffs and she's worried about me because I am alone. In fact, she gave me the SPOT because she worries when I hike alone. I assured her that I was below the cliffs, not on them. I couldn't assure her that I wasn't alone like I had with the MMWT as the Meysan trail is deserted. Mom asked me to call back in a couple of hours. Soooo...anyway, since I was stopped, I decided to break out my Subway sandwich and have lunch. This little phone and food break took a good 45min. But I was taking my time, like I always do. My thinking was "What do I care if I get to camp at midnight?" I can't sleep much at altitude anyway, might as well get there late and hopefully a little more tired.
I noticed a group of five hikers catching up to me quickly. The woman at the end of the group yells up to me in a very clear Russian accent "Are you Tom Dietz?" I was a bit stunned and replied "yes?"....she said "I know you!"...hmmm, my list of known attractive Russian women is pretty close to zero, throw in hikers and I'm pretty sure it's absolute zero. She then said "you live in Tarzana, right?"...she had me there. She then started laughing....I had dropped my permit and she had picked it up. After some pleasantries they moved on up the switchbacks....then they stopped and waited for me. They were being eaten alive by the skeeters and asked if I had an bug repellent. I did and helped them out. On this note, as much as I like shorts and short sleeve shirts, if there is any chance of running into mosquitos, I wear long pants and long sleeved shirt. Those little bastards can ruin a great hike. However, except for the lower portions of the trail in the wooded area, the skeeters were pretty light.
About 15 minutes later with the Russians well ahead of me, I ran into my first problem...The flooding last week wasn't isolated to only the Whitney zone. The Meysan trail was washed out in numerous places. Some places it just made for an interesting crossing, but at least you could see where the trail picked up. In others it required some real detective work to find the trail.
The first place where I lost the trail was a sandy and relatively flat area that has the first water on the trail. BTW:, I recommend getting water at this spot. It's a tiny little stream...maybe 18" wide, but it's the only place that you will see water until just before Grass Lakes.
Each time I lost the trail set me back about 5 minutes...and this was while it was still light. And then it got dark. I was going up the trail in the woods and the trail just stopped. It was completely washed out. I walked 50' to the right to see if I could find the trail....nope. Then I walked up past a big tree through the newly created ravine to see if I could pick up the trail. No joy...couldn't find anything that looked like a trail. So I went back down thinking that maybe I missed a turn. Nope, I was clearly on the trail, so I went back up to the tree and climbed over the roots and found something that could be a trail if you removed the plants and rocks and then I actually found the trail.
The Tree
And within 20 feet I lost it again. I looked up and there were two lights working their way toward me. I decided to watch them and go up the way they came down. They immediately started describing how hard the trail was to follow. I said "that's why I waited here, I wanted to see which path you took". They gave me some good pointers, but I still had a tough time holding the trail. Then I got to the sandy switchbacks and it was obvious that I was going to have to cross a deep ravine someplace. And once again the trail disappeard, but I could make out where the trail must be, so I made my way there on the safest path I could find.
Once you get past the sandy switchbacks you are almost to Grass Lakes. The trail is in decent shape here. No washed out sections. Right before I got to Grass lakes there was some water on the trail coming from springs.
I got to Grass Lakes and my Russian friends were already in their tents. I didn't want to disturb them, so I figured I would go down the trail a bit. There is a sign at Grass Lakes that says:
And then from what I saw, there is an arrow pointing forward. What I didn't see are the two arrows pointing to the right. (other hikers miss those as well. And the trail to Camp and Meysan lakes are actually 50' in front of the sign, so it is a bit confusing). So I head on down to the lake and start walking along the edge. The ground is very soggy and I start sinking in. I'm thinking "this has got to be the trail, the sign said so!". I gave up and turned back and set up camp as quietly as possible.
Chez TDTZ with Grass Lakes in BG
Woke up around 7am and chatted with the Russians. Had a leisurely breakfast and admired the beauty of Grass Lakes. The Russians hit the trail around 8am. I took my time and hit the trail at 9:30am. It's a very nice hike to Camp Lake. And I am amazed that nobody every mentions this lake. It is incredibly beautiful. AT the east end is stream (or is it a brook?) that feeds Camp Lake and is the route to Meysan Lake. This was the place where I saw my first and only marmot of the trip. The general rule here is go up on the right side of the stream on whatever looks like the best path. Eventually you'll get to a place where it's clear that going up the stream is no longer the right route and you have to head up the rocky slope on the left (looking upstream). There is a trail...or more accurately, there are trails. Look for the cairns, but if you don't see them, just go up and a little bit to the right, you'll get there. Meysan Lake is reminiscent of Consultation lake. I sat to see if I could find my Russian friends climbing toward Le Conte. After a few minutes, I noticed that a couple of the specks in the snow were moving in and out of view. And then I saw five specks appear in the couloir. I watched them for a while and had a snack and snapped a few photos and then took off back to camp.
Back to camp at 1pm, ate lunch, broke camp and started on down at 2pm. Called my wife once at 4pm and told her at the rate I was going, I should be back to my car at 6pm. I didn't call my mom because every time I called she wanted to talk for 20 minutes. Only lost the trail once going down. But I saw the tree from the night before about 100 yards down the hill and I just made my way down the ravine to it and was back on track. I made it to the trailhead at 5:24pm and my car 20 minutes later. I was pretty hungry so I headed up to the portal store for a big ole juicy burger. I hung out with two other solo hikers and we chatted a bit. Time to hit the road. I parked right by the portal store and was changing into some clean cloths. I was about to do the quick change into clean shorts when a car pulls up behind my car. It's marked "Inyo sheriff". I was thinking..."umm, dood, I am leaving in a second, couldn't you park in the open spot next to me?". I started my car to let him know I was leaving. That's when he got out of his car and approached my car. I opened my car door, thanking god that I hadn't got far enough along in the clothing change to leave myself exposed, and he says "Do you know Mary Queen of Drama" (my new name for my mother). I said "yes, is everything ok?.....my thinking was that the only reason he would be asking me about my mother is if there was a tragedy. He assured me that everything was ok. That he received a call about an overdue hiker. I was incredulous. I said "no way, I'm not overdue, I'm actually a little early".
He was quite gracious as I was apologizing for wasting his time. He said that he was happy to get out of the heat and come up to the beautiful area. He asked that I call my Mom when I got cell coverage. I was mortified....with all of the talk of wasting SAR and public servants time with meaningless calls, now I was one of them.
When I got to the first pull-out on the portal road that overlooks Lone Pine, I called my Mom and said "What the hell were you thinking?!?!?" She said, well, your SPOT stopped working and I couldn't reach you on your cell phone and the last place where the SPOT placed you was on a cliff overlooking peanut lake (this is, of course, the Grass Lakes camp). And of course, I turn my phone off when I am not using it. After "discussing" the irresponsible use of public servants, I got off the phone and called my wife. She said, I tried to stop her, but she called the sheriff before she called me. If she had called me, I would have told her that you called at 4pm and everything was fine.
Anyway, the SPOT was probably affected by the solar flares this weekend.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/60756.htmlThere are multiple reports of GPS systems not working this weekend.
But from now on....I will not be letting anyone know when I am hiking. The SPOT was supposed to alleviate the worrying when I am hiking alone. It seems to cause more stress since it isn't exact and it can look like I am hanging by a thread on a cliff or if it stops working, that it is reason for panic.....I'll still use it for myself, but only my wife gets to know when I am using it.
Notes:
The Meysan trail is MUCH more strenuous than the MMWT. It's a completely different experience and it is a real opportunity to be away from people. I saw a total of six people come down on Friday and a total of six people went up (me and the 5 russkies). Saturday I saw six day hikers go up and down. That means only the Russians were on the hill last night.
Cold food didn't work for me. I had PB&J on tortillas, sliced turkey and some Colby jack cheese. None of that was terribly palatable. I had to wash everything down with a sip of water because my mouth was so dry. I am going back to my chicken soup. Goes down really easily and is an enjoyable meal.
Cell phone is staying turned off.
Another misuse of the SPOT is when watchers think it is exact and then don't understand that something as simple as a dead battery can make it stop working (not the case this time). I like the SPOT, but I won't let it be misused anymore. My hikes will be unannounced (with family) from now on.
Loved my new gear
I'm not great with the reports like you though, and everyone and their momma has been up the North Fork, so I'll just add my version of the picture that can be found every where on the Web.
