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New Beginnings.

Zombie Feet is the collaborative travel blog of Jess and Kat. Please excuse the craziness as many of our adventurings are undergoing reconstruction for posting in roughly chronological order. Letters, emails, journals and such are being reformatted and having photos added. Please check the archives frequently as changes will most frequently occur there. Once all is in order, cataloging of present and future adventures will commence. Stay tuned! :D

Long trails

Backpacking in Yosemite 

Our last three days were greuling. I think the milage was 13, 14, and 17, but I don't remember now. It always feels like more, anyway. We headed south towards Isberg Pass, then looped north again and followed the bottom of the valley we had been hiking above. On the last day there was a tremendous rainstorm. The kind that lasts all day and soaks absolutely everything. We decided to hike all the way out into the Yosemite valley for the night, so we trudged soggily past the misty monoliths that make the valley so famous. The only reason this was a good idea was the veggieburger waiting for me in a cafeteria at the bottom.
This picture is from our camp the night after Bernice lake. The trail climbed haltingly for the first seven miles or so, then followed south along what was little more than a ledge. Thunderstorms rolled in and continued all afternoon, and we were exhausted, so we pitched camp at an incredible spot just next to the trail where the ledge widened out. The whole Clark Range was open to the west, and you could see the storms brewing over the peaks and the silver of rivers shooting thousands of feet straight down the carved granite to the valley below.

Day 7

Dinner 

At Tuolumne meadows we resupplied and met up with Laurel and Mary Wagstaff. Laurel, fresh from a trip to Japan, was full of stories and questions about Reed. We got along famously. Newly loaded, we had an easy late afternoon trek up Rafferty creek towards Vogelsang, and spent the night by the creek.
From there, we crossed over Vogelsang pass and descended into a steep granite-sided valley threaded with thin waterfalls, and climbed right back out of it to camp at Bernice Lake. I couldn't resist swimming in it, wide and blue and empty as it was. I shivvered all night in payment. It's always worth it.

Day 5

At Glen Aulin 

We cut cross country over Virginia pass into the spectacular Spiller creek basin. The whole valley was smooth and symmetrical with steep sides, the kind only very huge glaciers can make. It was open and swimming with wildflowers. We spent a lazy afternoon reading and sleeping in the meadow where we camped.
The next day we followed the creek south down its valley into the Yosemite highlands. McCabe lake, where we spent the night was just two miles off the PCT, but entirely deserted. Perhaps the hill up is too much. Dinner and sleep, hough not enough of either.
Day five. We had a long hike south to make it to Tuolumne Meadows the next morning for a resupply. The country was woody and gently rolling for most of the 13 miles. The huge granite domes of Yosemite valley rose above the trees in the distance. At Glen Aulin, we stopped for a swim before following along the tulmultuous Tuolumne river as it shot down towards Hetch Hetchy.

Eastern Sierras

 

I drove out to Bishop and met up with Cooper and his dad to go backpacking in the Eastern Sierra highlands. They do long trips every year with their family friends the Wagstaffs. We started in the Hoover wilderness, to the north of Yosemite, and spent two days climbing into the highlands.