The John Muir Trail - August 2010

I finally got to go on a short backpack trip in the Sierras. We (my friends Brian, George and Paul) decided to do a small (37 mile) portion of the John Muir Trail from Red’s Meadow to Tuolumne Meadows. I haven’t been backpacking other than overnighters for nearly 10 years now and with my ankle/foot problems of the last year I hadn’t been hiking in well over a year, so I was looking forward to seeing how it all felt.

Paul R, George T, Brian S.

We couldn’t get a permit in advance, so we decided to show up at the Ranger Station at Mono Lake and try and get one of the "next day" permits. Apparently they reserve 40% of the permits for walk-ins like us. Since we didn’t really have a backup plan, other than sitting in a bar in Mammoth for a few days, we were quite pleased when we were successful in getting the permits. Of course the permits were never checked on the trail, and one wonders what they would do if they encountered you deep in the Sierras without one.

We left one car at the North end (Tuolumne Meadows) and then drove down to the other end (Mammoth Lakes) where we stayed overnight. Next morning we caught the shuttle bus from Mammoth Lakes over the hill and down to Red’s Meadow, the start of our trip.

In the first few miles of the hike we passed by Devil’s Postpile National Monument – a magnificent example of a columnar basalt. Add to that the glacially polished hexagonal cross section and you have two interesting geological phenomena in the same place.

Columnar Basalt at Devil's Postpile

Further on up the trail we crossed the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River. Seeing the San Joaquin River at this point is a bit disturbing as the San Joaquin flows into the San Joaquin Valley and out into San Francisco Bay. At this particular spot you definitely feel like you are on the East side of the Sierras and water should not be ending up in San Francisco. But check the map - it does.

Onward and upward, we pushed ahead under the weight of our no longer so light packs (mine was around 35lbs - not an insignificant weight on an uphill climb). Fortunately the scenery was spectacular and that made the effort all worthwhile. On that first day we did around 9 miles before setting camp by Gladys Lake - as nice a spot as you could wish for. I was really really exhausted after the day's efforts and so it was early to bed that night - we were all in our tents before nightfall. I had a great night's sleep, thanks to the new Thermorest NeoAir mattress - sheer luxury.

Next day it was on towards a series of lakes - Shadow Lake, Garnet Lake, Thousand Island Lake…. It was cooler and there were threatening clouds hanging over the mountains to the west. We met a couple of folks who said there was bad weather ahead and this started the rumblings of concern within the group. On the hike up to Garnet Lake, we met the hiking grannies – 5 or 6 women – the oldest of which was 79 – who were turning back because the weather was bad. They were older and turning back is understandable, but we were young(er) guys and the weather was not that bad. Alas, my friend’s decided to call it off and hike back to an exit point on the trail (Agnew Meadows).

Thousand Island Lake (possibly)

So this left me alone on the trail with perhaps inclement weather ahead. Fortunately after cresting the pass into Garnet Lake basin, I could see the clouds and snow (yes there was some very fine snow drifting down) were keeping around the summit and the western side, and were dissipating before they reached me. I pushed on, and being solo, I had nothing to stop for. I walked on past Thousand Island Lake, to Island Pass and then on until I set camp just before dark (around 6:30). When you are hiking solo, there's not much distraction and no campfire chats to keep you up. All there is to do is to go to bed - it's quite efficient.

In the morning before sun up, I poked out of the tent to find snow on the ground. There wasn't much and the skies overhead were clear but it had me worried about trail finding higher up the trail – surely there would be more snow over Donahue Summit, the high point of the day at 10,500 ft.


Fortunately, the snow was just around the meadow in which I was camping, elsewhere there was no sign of it - quite strange. I was on the trail by 7:00 am (again hiking solo is so efficient when breaking camp). I crested Donahue Summit at 9:00 am amid almost perfect conditions. That left me a straight downhill shot of some 12 or more miles down Lyell Canyon to Tuolumne Meadows - good progress indeed. I was at my intended camp ground for the night before midday and so I made the decision to hike out to Tuolumne that same day.

Lyell Canyon

Lyell Canyon is long, but it is an easy mostly downhill hike and by 5:00 pm I was at Tuolumne Meadows. A bit extra was tacked on by accepting a ride on the Shuttle Bus at Tuolumne which took me a mile out of the way from my car, but other than that all was well.

A quick stop at the Tioga Gas Mart (perhaps the most interesting Mobil Gas Station and convenience store you will find anywhere) and I was on the road back to Mammoth to swagger boastfully around my wimpish friends who made the wrong weather decision. Those guys who had bailed the previous day had only that afternoon made it back to the hotel in Mammoth, and they had encountered rain – myself I was blessed with good weather all the way.

Here is a link to some more photos.

A French Wedding and a few Days in Paris

Back in June I was lucky enough to attend a wedding in France. My friend Bill's son Nick was getting wed to a young lady from Orleans.

Of course I tied everything into a trip to the UK to visit my mother in Chesterfield. The trip from Chesterfield to France couldn't have been easier - the train from Chesterfield goes to St Pancras in London, which is now the new and very fine terminal for the Eurostar train to Paris (catching a train to go south to France from a station on the north side of London doesn't seem logical, but that's the way they built it).

The short trip across Paris on the Metro and another train to Montargis was not quite as stress free. Paris Metro and the train station did not (on that day) appear to have any human ticket vendors, just hundreds of machines taking the dreaded chip and pin credit cards which we Americans do not have. I purchased a highly inflated Metro ticket from a dubious character on the Gare Du Nord, and then gave up completely on the train ticket to Montargis and just got on the train sans ticket (not that I would encourage this behavior, but no one collected the fare, and I just walked out the station at the end of the line in Montargis).

Montargis is a delightful little town - home of the praline (first made in the time of Louis XIII) and once visited by Joan of Arc. On top of that, if Chinese history is to be believed, it was also instrumental in the formation of the Chinese Communist Party - who would have expected that? It will soon be visited by the Tour De France, it being the finish and start of stages in this year's Tour (the course was decorated with these nice little cycling jersey flags).


The wedding was quite wonderful - a bilingual ceremony in a little Catholic Church, a long reception in a nearby Chateau, and a lunch there the next day. I had heard the wedding reception could be long, but I didn't imagine it to be quite so long - we started at the church around 2:30 and we left the reception around 1:00 am after the cake came out. Apparently the younger guests saw the dawn come up.


Interestingly outside the church a Frenchman approached me and asked if I was American (yes was the simplest answer). He then went on to relate the story of Americans passing through the town in their tanks during the liberation of the Second World War. He was 4 at the time and he remembers the Americans distributing sweets and chewing gum to the children.

Axelle, the bride, being a cabaret dancer, had many cabaret dancer friends which provided wonderful entertainment for the wedding (this was after the hors d' ouvres and champaigne and a 6 course meal, just before the elaborate cake and sugar sculptures).



After the wedding, we (Bill, Cathy, Brian, Allison, and Nigel) met up in Paris to enjoy a few days in the city. We did a few things I hadn't done before like climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower (see aboove), and riding on a river boat on the Seine. I finished up sipping a Pernod at a cafe outside the Gare Du Nord before stepping aboard the oh-so-fast Eurostar to London, and the not-quite-as-fast Midland Mainline to Chesterfield.

Here are some photos from the trip.