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| Exuberant Lauryn and note-taking David at Glen Aulin's Sunset Rock |
This weblog chronicles the eight-day High Sierra Loop adventure I completed in July 2012 with my niece Lauryn Hare and my forty-year hiking friend from Taos, David Witt. We planned to hike the 49-mile-long loop trail counter-clockwise beginning and ending at Tuolumne Lodge, the only High Sierra Camp served by a road. Though I've been visiting and hiking in Yosemite for four decades, I had never done the complete High Sierra Loop Trail. It was a a major item on my bucket list. I didn't have much difficulty enrolling Lauryn and David. The idea of having near-gourmet dinners and breakfasts while traversing 6-10 miles per day through some of Yosemite's most scenic wilderness added to the allure. Lighter packs, happier bellies and no dish-washing seemed too good to pass up.
Beyond this Introduction, I will be sequentially posting one log entry for each leg of our trip, from one High Sierra Camp (HSC) to the next. These will be:
- Tuolumne Meadows HSC to Glen Aulin HSC
- Glen Aulin to May Lake HSC
- May Lake to Sunrise HSC
- Sunrise to Merced HSC
- Merced to Vogelsang HSC
- Vogelsang HSC to Tuolumne HSC.
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| The High Sierra Loop Trail |
Though the loop is designed to take only six days, as the camps were located a day's hike apart, our hike took eight days because we planned a layover day at Glen Aulin to day-hike down to LeConte Falls and another at Vogelsang to explore Hanging Basket Lake and Vogelsang Pass. Our goal was to have an enjoyable, safe and fulfilling hike sharing camaraderie, great scenery, wildlife, flowers, good food, and adventure. We were not disappointed.
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| Bob, David & Lauryn leaving Vogelsang HSC on Day 8 headed down to Tuolumne |
History of the High Sierra Camps (from Wikipedia):
In 1916, Stephen Mather of the National Park Service made an agreement with a private concessionaire, D. J. Desmond, to build mountain "chalets" at Tenaya Lake, Tuolumne Meadows and Merced Lake. Desmond's company went bankrupt during World War I, and these first camps closed in 1918. In 1923, the Park Service decided that the camps should be re-opened and expanded. Ranger and naturalist Carl Parcher Russell hiked through the region and selected locations for five more camps. Three of these were built the following year by a new concessionaire, the Yosemite National Park Company. That firm merged with the Curry Camping Company in 1925, forming the Yosemite Park and Curry Company, which ran the camps for many years under the management of Donald Tresidder, until his death in 1948.
Ansel Adams defended the High Sierra Camps against critics who saw them as an encroachment into the wilderness: "The present High Sierra Camps do not, in my opinion, violate wilderness qualities as they now exist. I personally feel that a High Sierra Camp near the north rim of the Yosemite Valley would be a logical link in the chain." A camp on the north rim was never built.
The Yosemite Park and Curry Company operated the High Sierra Camps until 1993, when the company was purchased by Delaware North, which has operated the concession ever since, and manages all of the camps except the Sequoia High Sierra Camp. Demand for reservations at the Yosemite backcountry camps is very high, and a lottery is conducted for reservations, with applications being accepted from September 1 to November 1 of the previous year for reservations the following summer.
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| The High Sierra Loop Trail circles Cathedral Peak and traverses the Cathedral Range at Tuolumne Pass |
I approached the 49-mile loop as a pilgrimage around my chosen sacred peak, Cathedral Peak, which has been my Kailas, Sinai, and Everest-Chomolungma since I first climbed her four decades ago. All the High Sierra Camps lie between four and five air miles from Cathedral Peak except for Merced Lake HSC, which is 7.5 miles away. Due to the mountainous terrain Cathedral Peak is only visible when the trail traverses the Tuolumne Meadows and May Lake areas. Though only 10,911' high, this granite monument stands out among surrounding higher ridges and peaks with a distinct and dramatic personality that makes it the iconic peak of this part of Yosemite. An early mountain pilgrim, John Muir clearly loved this outstanding glacier-carved cathedral as evidenced in his writings:
From the top of the divide, and also
from the big Tuolumne Meadows, the wonderful mountain called Cathedral Peak is
in sight. From every point of view it shows marked individuality. It is a
majestic temple of one stone, hewn from the living rock, and adorned with
spires and pinnacles in regular cathedral style. The dwarf pines on the roof
look like mosses. I hope some time to climb to it to say my prayers and hear
the stone sermons.
I never weary gazing at the wonderful Cathedral. It has more individual character than any other rock or mountain I ever saw, excepting perhaps the Yosemite South Dome.
The Sierra Cathedral, to the south of camp, was over-shadowed like Sinai. Never before noticed so fine a union of rock and cloud in form and color and substance, drawing earth and sky together as one; and so human is it, every feature and tint of color goes to one’s heart, and we shout, exulting in wild enthusiasm as if all the divine show were our own. More and more, in a place like this, we feel ourselves part of wild Nature, kin to everything.
Though we too exulted in the beauty and grandeur of our trek one must sweat and puff to earn this wild blessing. Some stretches and days were hard indeed (David and I are in our sixties) and we always just squeaked into camp in time to drop our packs and pitch our tents before we heard the dinner bell. But each day brought new scenic wonders and each meal brought us new friends and pleasant company.
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| Merced Lake's Breakfast "Come-and-Get-It!" Call |
David and I were both Eagle Scouts in our teens and worked at scout summer camps (myself in Mississippi and David in Kansas). We met in 1972 at Scouting's High Adventure Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico. We were young curators of the art and collections of Ernest Thompson Seton, one of the founders of the Boy Scout movement. I bring this up because each of the High Sierra Camps reminds me of the pleasant and wholesome combination of nature and culture that I remember from the summer camps of my formative years. I've never been happier than when living in tents in the heart of wild nature, surrounded by adventure possibilities, wild animals, dramatic weather changes...and also having the pleasure of sharing our adventures over a good meal around a big camp table. I've done a lot of solo wilderness trekking, and there is a special sweet intensity and keen mental and spiritual edge to cross-country solo backpacking, but the warm society of fellow campers and shared meals in a wilderness setting brings an entirely different kind of joy.
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| Breakfast at Merced Lake HSC |
This very rare mix of wilderness and culture is the special blessing of the High Sierra Camp tradition that goes back to 1923 when, to quote the High Sierra Camp website: "The five original high camps were located at Little Yosemite Valley, Merced Lake, Tenaya Lake, Booth Lake, and Tuolumne Meadows. All of the camps would consist of a mess and cook tent, and dormitory tents for men and women. Attendants and cooks would staff each camp, with equipment and supplies brought in by mule train. Almost immediately, it became apparent that horseback riders and hikers favored the camps, which soon became known simply as the “High Sierra Camps.”. The camps are still supplied by mule train and some people still make the loop on the back of a horse (though after seeing how some could barely walk upon dismounting I didn't envy their easy ride through the mountains!). The tent camps and kitchen of each of the five wilderness camps are dismantled every September and pitched and outfitted as soon as the snowmelt allows. These camps are an invaluable legacy of the High Sierra recreation and packing culture of the old west.
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| Mule Train heading down Rafferty Trail to Tuolumne Meadows |
By our eighth delicious High Sierra Camp breakfast (at Vogelsang), Lauryn, David and I discovered that we had made some surprisingly close friendships with a half-dozen hikers we kept meeting on our route and sharing meal conversations. In my final blog of this adventure I will describe the surprising parting meal we shared and how the High Sierra Loop Trail's rare mix of nature and culture enriched our lives so wonderfully.
Happy Trails to you!
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| Lauryn at LeConte Falls |
