High Sierra Trail Day 1 and 2.

So,
    I'm done with the images involved in the High Sierra trail trip. There are many good ones and since this blog acts as a sort of journal I am going to try and include as much information as I can along with the images.

Day 1:
      Joes wife Heather took us up to Visalia and dropped us off at the Holiday Inn with our giant overstuffed packs. Some peoples packs more overstuffed than others.

From Left: Joe Barrus, Me, my pack, Adam Roten (Joes Friend from TX) and Matt (another Joe friend but from LA)

We made our way into the air conditioned hotel lobby, promptly dropped our heavy/ full packs and sipped lemon water until the Sequoia shuttle arrived. The shuttle picked us up and then took 2 hours to deposit us at the Lodgepole Campground all for the low cost of $7.50/ person.

We planned to stay at the campground that night so that we could pick up our permits and get an early start the next day. We did that and had real food for the last time at the National park cafe. Joe made firewood with his Machete and we had a nice campfire that night.

That night was punctured by loud generators, partying fellow campers and some kid riding a 2 stroke motorcycle until all hours of the night. We slept restlessly.

Day 2:

We woke up early broke down camp and set out. The ranger that we'd picked up the permits from the day before had mentioned that the in-park shuttle that would take us to the trailhead wouldn't start running until 9am. Then with a few stops and transfers it would probably get us to the Crescent Meadow trailhead around 10 am. OR, we could just walk an extra 1.2 miles on the day and take an alternate trailhead that joined with the HST later on in the day. Since we were ready early we opted for the extra walk.
    The trail was right behind the campsite we'd stayed in and started going uphill immediately. The ranger had left this part out. I inspected the topo maps and realized that today was going to have a lot more elevation since we'd not left from Crescent meadow. Everyone was fine with this so we kept walking.

Joe had managed to pitch an Austin based energy bar company called Oatmega Bar on setting us all up with amazing GoPro equipment/ a free box of bars each and $100 each if we would shoot some footage for them so we did. This not only added a lot of weight to the packs but became quite a time consumer which would effect us later on in the trip. On the first day we stopped at a few places to film and photograph various things. Our first stop was at a creek with some climbing features and deep pools.

As we continued up the hill the group started to grumble and the skies open up and rain/ hailed on us for a while. Eventually we reached a lovely overlook and I pointed out that from there it was all downhill. (more a curse than a blessing)

Storm cloud panorama from Panther Gap

As we walked downhill towards the junction with the HST it became apparent that Adam was having real trouble with his knees from his incredibly overstuffed pack. To put it in perspective he is a 150lb dude who was easily carrying 60lbs in his pack. I was carrying closer to 45 lbs. He ended up really hurting his knees on this day and that would plague him for the rest of the trip.

We saw many lovely creeks and overlooks. We passed Buck creek and Nine Mile creek campgrounds in search of Bearpaw Meadow where we planned to camp.

Because of all of the GoPro shooting we had done that day we were still hiking as the sun was setting and everyone began to doubt wether or not I knew where we were going. Since no one else bothered to learn how to read a map I was the default navigator. As I assured them that we were on the right path I noticed a rustling on the hill above where we were. When I stepped to the side there was a big black bear less than 200ft from us cracking open a log with it's paws trying to get at the bugs inside. I wasn't able to get a picture of this unfortunately because I had been storing my camera inside a plastic bag, inside of my camera bag due to the on/off rain all day, as I fumbled to get it out the bear took off. Eventually we made it to Bearpaw Meadow backpackers camp were a fire was made, dehydrated meals were eaten and  more fun was had.

That is all for now.

Ryan