I Hate the Cold/Part Two

It's been a few days. I'm still recovering - eating, drinking and sleeping until 7:00 a.m.
Back to our story, already in progress ...

Fog started to roll in, and with it, increasing cold. The rain was on & off - enough to make me wish I had not taken my raincoat out of my pack and left it in the car, but not enough to curse the day I was born. We finally made it to the point where we had to go off trail and find a campsite to set up for the next day's survey. The creek we were surveying was in a steep, cold, dark canyon. We had to climb a ways uphill to find a spot flat enough to camp on. It was my partner's turn to cook, and she had an ambitious lentil curry planned. I watched this boil for about 45 minutes at our elevation of 6800 ft., while all of the blood in my body started to retreat to my core. I had on all of my clothes - long johns, pants, 2 shirts, my Zoic vest, Zoic fleece jacket, gloves and a hat. At 8.45 p.m., a spurt of logic emerged and I realized the lentils she was boiling were never going to cook because the pot was not big enough to hold the amount of water that was required to make them edible. I hastily made my excuses and beat a path toward my sleeping bag before any chance of ever feeling warm again escaped me. I went to bed hungry and cold.

A few days later, we had a good laugh about the curry incident. As it turns out, she didn't eat it either, and she had to pack it out; we're not supposed to bury the stuff. (This came back to haunt her as the bag she stored it in exploded when we went to a higher elevation, and she ended up with rotten curry all over herself. More hilarity ensued when she told me about this.)

Next day, my tent was frosted over, and the 1 side of my sleeping bag was wet. I had not staked out my tent properly, so the side of my fly hit the tent and the frost was melted by my warm respiration.

Our fingers cracked from the cold. We ate almost all of our food trying to stay warm for the 3 days we were out. We did not find any Willow Flycatchers. I did see a bear running away into the forest in front of me when we were hiking. This was on the day we hiked to our 2nd to last site, where it briefly snow flurried (the white dots in this photo):

That night we ate dinner at 6.00 p.m. I escaped to my tent at 7 and thought, "I will just lay here with my eyes closed and see what happens." Next thing I knew it was 4.30 a.m. and time to get up. My partner had to wake me up - again. I thought my watch battery was almost dead, but then realized that the light and alarm - and even the time display - wasn't functioning very well because it was so #$%^%&$& cold. The solution was to snuggle up with all the electronics (the batteries, my camera, my watch, the GPS) in my sleeping bag. Mmmmm .... cozy.

The next morning, I had a lovely 5:00 a.m. moment with the moon and the evergreens:

After this site, we had another 6-mile hike to Chilnualna Creek - at 7500 ft., our highest site. This is where the curry exploded. After we finished the hike, I dropped my pack, laid on the ground and fell asleep:

We finished up there and headed back out on Friday morning. The cold weather broke for us on Thursday, so the 7-mile hike out on Friday was beautiful. I got documentary evidence that the trail map was correct:

And, I truly appreciated the beauty of the falls:



Twenty-some miles round trip. Coldest weather veteran members of the crew could remember in the Sierras. And - we didn't even get the worst of it. One couple got snow/hail/rain in a different part of the park. I guess I'm just a lucky gal.