The idea was to take 7 days / 6 nights to first loop in and out of the upper GCT (in order to sleep low the first night) then back up and through TM to Cathedral, Sunrise, Cloud's Rest, and Half Dome to the Valley. A leisurely itinerary that didn't have more than 8 miles any given day. But, from the first day in she and I both were feeling what we thought was AMS, she worse than me. We made it down beyond California Falls the first night, but then it took us two days to climb out back to TM. She was in pretty good spirits under the circumstances, but her stomach just couldn't hold anything down. We took the new free shuttle from TM to the Valley to get down to 4,000 and the next day she still wasn't better, so we bailed. She ended up getting a saline IV and some meds to calm her gut. We're home and she's 90+% better now, but it was not the trip we had planned. But as I told her, Yosemite isn't going anywhere so we can always come back and do that trip another time.
We were with Chick-On and Old Dood the first day. We started out by meeting Basilbop, JKW, L and R at Mickey D's for breakfast. So nice to meet you guys! They went to Kibbie and the four of us headed to TM. We entered via Pothole:
Though we were starting to feel the affects of AMS/stomach bug, we were having a glorious time. I'm so glad Daughter found someone her own mental age to relate to:
We stopped for lunch in a familiar spot by the river, OD got to use his new chair:
The river was up nicely, from the rains a few days earlier:
This is such a beautiful area:
We stopped at the campsite Chick-On had in mind for us about halfway between California and Leconte Falls. Chick-On and Daughter and I left our packs with OD and went down to LeConte.
Our lucky timing with the temporary rain runoff resulted in quite a show for the middle of a drought:
Next day started with special pink-feathered pancakes for breakfast in the backcountry, but then as we began to climb out Daughter was sicker than the day before and we stopped for several hours at a spot along the river to feel better:
We assured OD and Chick-On we would be OK and let them get on back home on Sunday, while I carried Daughter's pack strapped to mine and we made it only to the backpacker's campground in Glen Aulin to make camp, about a 2 mile day.
The next morning we headed out with the expectation that the AMS would be largely behind us and we could pick up the rest of our itinerary:
We made it to TM, looking up at Cathedral and the area of our intended next destination:
We retrieved our food stashed in the Cathedral bear lockers and started up the trail. We got no further than a little beyond the Budd Creek trail when she decided she can't continue, so I strapped on her pack again and we bailed to the TM backpacker's campground. Next morning we grabbed the new free shuttle to the Valley, which was comfy and included a road-side bear sighting. We lounged in Curry Village for a few hours then went over to the backpacker's campground there for the night.
The next day I really thought she would be better -- we had slept at 4k, but she still wasn't better so we no longer suspected just AMS and went to the clinic, where they suspected a stomach virus. We flew in the prior Friday and hit the trail and started feeling bad on Saturday, the timing would have been right to have caught a bug on the airplane or in the airport. So we decided to head out of the park and back to civilization...a disappointing but necessary change to our plans.
Thanks to Chick-On for pancakes and showing us around and good company, and thanks Mike for unending hospitality and kindness and a mean chicken sandwich. As for the future, yes we'll try it again one day. I'm actually planning to come back out next month, and the two of us will try to get out to finish this trip soon!
