Pack inspection went well on Wed

And the scouts delivered all of the missed stuff.

Paul’s mom needed Paul to take care of her so he couldn’t join the pack inspection or the Miler start.
Matt Hayes joined us for the pack inspection and days 1 and 2 of the Miler. He drove his truck, I drove Natalie’s Caravan, and Laura drove her Honda arriving at 7 PM. Good pasta and sauce. We ate all of the pasta. It was cold at Cold Water Camp ground near George Lake outside of Mammoth Lakes. 32 degrees at night with a wind.

We left the camp site at 9:00 AM but hit the trail at about 10 AM due to car shuttle problems (we got a little lost and couldn’t find the return trail head). Breakfast was good and ample. Eggs, sausage, OJ, ham, cheese, muffins.

The trail was well maintained and well marked. 5 miles and 2000’ feet up and 500’ feet down, started at 9200’. This has been the hardest hiking day I have had since Woodchuck with Paul a few years ago. The altitude really got to me. I hiked a few steps and then stopped ‘til my legs stopped tingling. My pack left with about 53 ponds but we ate diner from it tonight. The taco stuff isn’t all that good and too spice, but we ate a pile of it. Jenny O loves her cheesecake (so does Jenny H.). I talked to Paul at length prior to our departure. He will pack light, leave his mom’s place Sunday, hike on Monday from our return trail head to meet us on Monday at Ram Lake. We hike to Ram on Sunday (tomorrow) and layover ‘til Tuesday

. Suzie is still suffering from altitude more than the rest of us. Matt is real slow but I’m not much ahead of him. The wind is blowing and quite cool – about 35 degrees.

I caught a fish (brown trout) in the pond between Deer lakes.

Weather – nice in the morning, clouds formed between 2 and 4 PM. Clear cold wind after 4 PM ‘til now (9:30 PM)

Plans change. Deer to Duck Lake rather than Ram Lake.

Suzie still is quite ill with AMS. Karen also has AMS symptoms. Laura also has the symptoms. I have a headache that treats well with Advil. The AMS symptoms that are being experienced are loss of appetite, headache, dizziness, chest congestion (but no rails). I decided to let Matt head home alone (as apposed to taking Suzie with him due to her illness) and we take a slow start to see how everyone will feel. We hit the trail after 10 AM and picked our way (cross-country) following the map noted trail route around cliffs vs. the short way up the loose rock. I think it was the right thing to do with the scouts but the other way could be done too. The shoot (see photo) was steep and loose (class 2-3). At the top (and on the way up) Suzie, Karen, and Laura were dizzy, headache and uncomfortable. Long rest the up next grade to Duck Lake. No way could we go to Ra Lake. After much thought and consideration, I decided that:

1) Tully was out due to the altitude and the sickness that we now have.

2. Pika Pass to Ram Lake is out for the same reason
3. We need an alternate route. All of the older scouts and leaders got involved in a new route selection. It may have to e changed but we will do what we can.

The new route:

Day 1 Saturday Deer Lake (done)

Day 2 Sunday Duck Lake (done)

Day 3 Monday Duck Lake (layover)

Day 4 Tuesday Ram Lake via Purple

Day 5 Wednesday Verginia Lake via cross country to Glen and Glennette lakes

Day 6 Thursday Virginia (layover)

Day 7 Friday Purple Lake

Day 8 Saturday Mary Lake – Out

Beautiful sunset.

The scouts are in good spirits and very cooperative. I feel good about all of this. I have been quite worried bu think this plan will satisfy all. Paul is expecting to see us at Ram Lake tomorrow. We will try to spot him before he climb s the pass or hikes the trail on the other side of the lake. Mat was to tell him to find us at Duck Lake but will likely not see him.

Weather - Much nicer today. Warmer with less wind. Fog came across the lake – it was beautiful.

Fishing I hooked and lost a fish at Pika Lake on a castmaster. Nice place to camp. The scouts all went to bed’ at 8 PM but most are still chatting at 9 PM

I slept well last night inspite of being "between a rock and a hard place". My shelter is wedged between two rocks and under some trees. All of the scouts are in good spirits. Slept in, ate pancakes, big mess but they loved them. Tried to use Billy kit lid for fry pan – big mistake. The steel cooks to uneven and burns.

8 people for breakfast

1 bag blue berries – some mixed into the pancakes and some not (re-hydrated in a cup of warm water worked okay)

3 Film canisters of powdered sugar

? pancake mix (Suzie?)

1 Teflon pan

Weather – cirius clouds in the morning and cumulus in the afternoon changing to cumulus nimbus after 3 PM

Thunder and lightning from 3 to 5 PM

Hail and rain (1/4 inch)

Not too cold

Slight overcast tonight

Paul hiked in from Mary Lake and arrived around 3 PM. Boy am I glad to see him. Karen feels ok – no AMS, I’m okay too. Suzie – head ache and slights nausea (not much appetite. Laura still has a headache and generally not feeling good. We ate ALL of the dinner tonight.

Fishing – 2 Brook at Duck Lake

1 Brook that I kept and cooked (anticipated more but …)

1 small Rainbow (later found out that it was a ______ not a Rainbow)

Action on light colored , small flys. Not much with hardware.

The weather won’t let us alone. Piro techniques show last night (more later) Lightning, hail, snow, wind, thunder, cold. It is now 3 PM. This weather started at noon.

It is now 9:15 PM. From last midnight we had a thunder and lightning storm with hail and rain that lasted about one hour. Lightning as close as 1000 feet (1 second) but mostly about a mile away. It was loud and exciting. At 2AM another storm, and again at 3 and 4 AM all just light and noise – not much precipitation. We got up kinda early, around 7 AM, with the intent of heading to Purple Lake then to Virginia. Some of our shelters were covered with ice ¼ inch thick. Everyone co-operated and had breakfast, packed, and ready to hit the trail by 9:30 AM (late due to the wet shelters etc.). The leaders looked at the dark cumulus clouds coming and decided to hike over the lump to Pika Lake, about ½ mile, and camp there. New scenery but no risk due to weather. At noon, shortly after setting up camp, the thunder and lightning started big time. Real cold. The view from my shelter is a forest carpeted in little white balls bouncing like popcorn.

It let up after a little more than an hour so I went fishing. No good. It started to hail with thunder and lightning again an lasted ‘til we had pils of snow around our shelters. We pulled my shelter down to make a cooking shelter for everyone. We all pulled together, ate, laughed, and had a good time. We reworked scout shelters and reset mine. My stuff got damp while being stored in Paul’s shelter but some of the scouts stuff is quite wet. Suzie is still suffering from AMS. I think we will pull the plug tomorrow and hike out – a night in Yosemite? We hard a bind and a few small rock slides today. We sow a black bear near our camp at Duck Lake this morning. It has been a jam packed day.

Just after Paul and I visited the forest we met at the bear bag tree to find that a bear had helped him self to "food-on-a-rope". He had managed to get four of our 8 bear bags. Unfortunately the mess was cleaned up before we thought to take pictures. I’d say "oh well – maybe next time" but there WON’T be a next time. We thought that we had done everything right this time … but we were wrong. The bags were high enough – 9 to 10 feet, far enough from the tree trunk – 8 feet, and far enough down from the branch – 8 to 10 feet. The branch was small but not small enough. I think that the bear that we saw the day before had cubs and the cubs got out onto the branch and pulled the bags up. One of the bags, with the rope still attached, was taken way up into the tree. The rest were ripped open. The bear(s) didn’t touch the tooth paste and didn’t seem too interested in the dried fruit. There were no jerky packages or contents left. Most of the dried food bags were punctured but not really opened. Peanut butter was eaten. The water bottles that had sweet stuff in them were messed with and one was punctured, but that didn’t seem to be of prime interest to the bear. I think that we will have to seriously consider bear canisters in the future when we go into these areas where the bears have been trained by people like us to go for the "food-on-a-rope". Both Paul and I expressed our sadness for having re-enforced this behavior. We feel that we have done some serious harm to our natural environment.

The weather is starting to look pretty good.

We had decided to pull the plug on the hike last night, the bear incident was not a deciding factor, however it certainly would have been considered had everything else been all right. We still had a few days of food left but we also had some sick people that had to be dealt with. The damp equipment also played a part in our decision.

The hike out was without event. We piled into the cars and headed to the showers at the general store in Twin Pines ?. They were very rustic but effective. Once showered, the scouts were not interested in any more camping so off to Pizza in Mammoth Lakes. We ate at the "best" Pizza place the town had to offer (according to everyone we had asked). The food was good and the company was great. Even though the trip was short, the adventure was as good as one could hope for. Everyone is safe and sound at home. No one feels ill, and I’m not aware of any hard feelings.