Yosemite Valley's North Rim, May 2006, Part 2

Yosemite Valley's North Rim, May 2006, Part 2

Continued from Part 1

So I find out that not only is he seriously lacking in rain gear or bivy gear (not to mention even an extra pair of socks), but that he only brought enough food for tonight 'cause he didn't have a bear canister. He did bring a sleeping bag, but it was made out of down. Nearly useless in the Sierras this time of year. I get the full inventory from the kid, make some mental calculations and inform him that a storm is supposed to be rolling in tomorrow. I tell him that I have enough space in my tent for two. I tell him he is welcome to join me if he chooses, just come in before he becomes wet. We have enough food for two days, plus a half day to hike out. He says "thanks, but I think I'll be ok."

That's cool with me and I chow down my dinner and wonder to myself why I bother with all this cooking. I think cooking is stupid. I make a mental note to start paring down on my cooked meals. Of course, I don't remember this mental note to myself until weeks later, but I digress.

I awake sometime before dawn the next morning to strong winds deforming my tent and Legolas's headlamp shining. I tell him to come in and open up the zipper for him. He jumps in, settles down and I'm back to sleep.

We spent the whole day in the tent during the storm-aside from me securing the tent, getting water and the occasional trip to relieve myself. It was freezing cold, wet and generally very unpleasant outside, but we passed the time well, chatting, iPodding, sleeping and reading.

I was well prepared for a storm, thanks to getting caught by a blizzard in July last year up at Ostrander. Thankfully I had a full polypro base layer, three pairs of socks, full rain gear and by synthetic double bag. I brought my two man Talus tent, which has been a great tent for something like six or eight years and storm tested.

Legolas and I weathered out the storm in relative comfort, but the next morning did not look much better. It did look better, but I decided to wait a bit to see if the clouds would lighten up or clear.
Instead, we got more snow, but thankfully, less wind. I decided to wait until we got a window in the weather, but even if we didn't, by 11AM, we would have to leave in order to get us back to civilization at a decent hour.

At 10:45AM the snow and sleet stopped long enough for us to pack up the tent and hit the trail. We roughly followed our course back to Ribbon Creek through the snow and eventually found our trail that led us back to the world. The creek crossings were even more interesting thanks to the storm, but we faired well through all of them.

The storm finally broke as we were approaching Foresta, providing us some great scenery. Shortly thereafter, me made it to the truck, concluding our trip.
We were alive, we even had all our fingers and toes, making this a successful excursion. It was certainly not what I had planned, but I still had a good trip, checked out some cool areas and learned some lessons along the way.

May 20 thru 22, 2006