Melina: Fischertrails Yosemite Trip Day 3 and A Tale of a Journey to Cloud's Rest

Day 3 journal excerpt

Wednesday June 19, 2013

This morning we woke up early to get a head start on hiking while we were fresh. We cooked breakfast by the lake and as we began packing up our tent we were shocked to find ice on the fly of our tent, it was so cold that ice had formed on our tent overnight. It all made sense why we couldn’t sleep that night. We finished packing and headed out, we felt good today our packs didn’t feel as heavy I think because we were now getting stronger so we had a much faster pace. We walked on this trail that I think was my favorite trail of the trip it was so scenic in the forest over this beautiful stream and up hill. We could see our destination (cloud’s rest) far off in the distance and were in good spirits feeling fresh on this trek. We saw some frost on the ground cover and passed by trees that looked like little Christmas trees it kind of gave me that warm fuzzy Christmastime feeling, even though we were in the middle of June.

We kept seeing cloud’s rest off in the distance and it seriously seemed so far away I couldn’t believe that we would make it there eventually. As we got closer to the hike got much steeper and our morning freshness was quickly wearing off. We were beginning to feel very tired and weary, but there was only one choice, to keep walking, so that’s exactly what we did. When we finally made it to the incline of cloud’s rest it was extremely hard to see over the peak it was nothing but giant granite rocks piled up higher and higher on each other all you could see was a narrow pile of rocks paving the way toward the endless sky and nothing but sheer cliff drops on the left and right. The wind was blowing so hard and my balance was not it’s best due to my heavy pack so I began feeling a fear building. I tried to crawl over a few of the rocks but it was difficult and I couldn’t figure out how there could be a trail leading us down at the end of this nothing rock piled trail that looked like it dropped off the mountain to the large valley below. I started to get that woozy feeling you know the one where your heart drops to your stomach I shakily walked forward then tripped and got down on my hands and knees and just began to cry silently to myself (I do have to add that during this time I was experiencing some pre menstrual syndrome) just as I was sitting on my hands and knees a few bees started to circle around my head throwing my balance off even more (it was obviously the wrong choice to wear a bright yellow hat on this trip, I was the only thing on those rocks that was bright and colorful). Tim became concerned and
offered to walk ahead and find where the trail led, a man at the top told him that the trail was on the left but when Tim looked there was nothing on the left but sheer drop off the cliff. So he walked to the right and found the trail, he reassured me it was there so I dropped my pack and had to investigate, once I saw the trail I was able to relax and enjoy lunch.

After having lunch on what felt like the top of the world we packed up and started the LONG LONG trek down to the peak. If I thought going up was painful going down was almost just as bad my knees began to feel so sore with each step I took and the miles and miles of going down hill was really starting to pinch my toes in my shoes.

When we finally got down to sunrise creek we were too tired to search for a perfect spot and just set up camp at the bottom of the trail at this spot that looked like it had just been camped at, there was a fire ring and stumps to sit around. We sat down relaxed set up camp then once we felt a tiny bit of strength coming back we went out and explored around our camp. We saw some deer and then climbed up to this rock and watched the sunset over half dome, our next destination.

That night we took of our shoes and I found the gnarliest blisters on my feet (I wish I would have take a pic so you could see) Tim said he had never seen blisters so big. Tim fixed my feet with his athletic training skills. That night we slept so well, because earlier before we set up the tent Tim painstakingly laid out some pine needles like a bed of hay so we could sleep on something a little softer. We slept straight through the night only waking once to the howl of a coyote.

Overall it was incredible journey and an amazing accomplishment to make it over the amazing vantage of Cloud's Rest!