Journal Entries

Granny's Cabin, Buffalo Wilderness Area This cabin was lived in by Granny Henderson until 1976 when the US Forest Service kicked her out to designate this as a wilderness area. Roughly 1.5 miles past this is Hemmed In Hollow which is the largest waterfall between the Rockies and Appalachian Mountains. Truly an incredible place...

Yellow Rock Trail, Devil's Den State Park, AR

This is a short 3 mile trail to a massive rock overlook. We added this to the Butterfield Trail loop after we finished it. Photo Credit: my wife

Kyle's Landing, Buffalo National River This trip was a partial bushwhack trip where we ended up camping above the "camping area". Hands down, one of the most beautiful places I've ever camped.

Tea Kettle Falls, Upper Buffalo Wilderness, AR

Moderately easy hike to this falls, but catching it on a day that it's running is tricky. Regardless, it's beautiful and massive! Obviously, my wife took this photo of me just standing under the falls opening.

Otter Hole campsite, King's River AR A group of friend's and I floated the King's River, near Eureka Springs, AR. This campsite was a much needed rest from a day of being in the sun, and the sunset was absolutely incredible. Add the view of the stars later that night without any light pollution and you've pretty much got a perfect campsite.

King's River Falls Rec Area, AR

A Short 1.5 mile, out and back hike along the creekbed. This place is excellent to swim in during the summer months!

Butterfield Hiking Trail, Devil's Den State Park, AR

This is an 18 mile loop that is close to our home so we opt to do short weekend trips here!

Mirror Lake, Ozark-St Francis National Forest, Fifty-Six AR

Day 3, July 12th: Garnet Lake to Red's Meadow Resort. 14 miles. (Note: these entries are from my trip last summer. I am writing them after-the-fact)

I wake up to the sound of my mom moving around camp. I closed the vestibule near my tent entrance last night because we're camped next to other people, and now condensation is frozen to the inside walls. It's melting and covering my sleeping bag with droplets where the warm bag has brushed against the drooping silnylon. I do my best to brush it off with my handkerchief and wiggle outside. My bear can is frozen shut and I hurt the cold tips of my fingers against the frost when trying to open it. It takes a while for my mom and I to pack up. We eat our cold breakfast and go down to the lake to dip our dirty water bags into the frigid, lapping water. It had been slapping against the rocks along the shore all night, sounding like voices or the filling up of water bottles.

I've been feeling really good hiking-wise, but because of that also mildly impatient with having to compromise on where we stop each day. I want to go further, always a little further. even though I know that we're going at the right pace. Most of this probably stems from the fact that I dislike the camping part of backpacking and would minimize it as much as possible. I don't like sitting around camp, and having to unpack and repack my possessions each day, and doing all of the little camp chores that seem to take up so much time.

I express this to my mom, and I can immediately tell that I've upset her. Even though she's doing well on this hike, it's still harder for her than me, and I feel horrible and awkward. She goes to filter another bag of water by the lake and doesn't talk to me.

When we start hiking the tension has mostly dissipated. We cross the outlet of the lake on a high footbridge, the water streaming in glittering, sinewy rivulets across the granite. I talk to a group of JMTers who are also from Reno and then pass them, following the trail up tight switchbacks up the side of the ridge bordering the lake.

My mom hikes fast in the mornings, and so it's the time when we hike the closest together, up the ridge still in shadow, the sun not yet high enough to reach us here. We crest a small saddle between granite ledges and down a small gully.

I stop to go off trail to pee while my mom goes ahead. When I come back to my pack the guy and his friend I met near Donahue come down the trail. They say hello and hike on. We end up leapfrogging them the rest of the day.

After a quick elevation rise near Shadow Lake, the rest of the day looks like it's all downhill. There's a worrying dark patch of compressed switchback squiggles on the map that corresponds with the Shadow Lake elevation change, however. Shadow Lake itself is shallow and silty around the shore, with the skeletons of pine trunks toppled into the water. I pause before turning into the first switchback.

The trees are dense here, and before too long the lake shore is receding between tree trunks far below me. My mom follows a half switchback behind me, and I wave whenever I pass her going the opposite way. At first I stop to catch my breath, but soon decide to try and get this ridge out of the way. My mom falls one, two, four zigzags below me. "How'd you get so far ahead?!" she calls, and I send a shrug. "I'm getting to the top without stopping. It must be close," I shout back. I can't see the lake anymore- nothing but trees and an endless brown slope of pine duff stretching up and down.

It must be close, I think. But it's not. I trundle up, using my legs to lever my body forwards, upwards. After what seems like forever I finally reach the top to find the guys we've been leapfrogging with sitting there. "That was a ridiculously long climb," I say. We start talking. Their names are Tanka and Bebak and they're originally from Nepal, but they've been working in Germany as doctors. No wonder their accents seemed so familiar; my grandparents hiked extensively in Nepal and have always had Nepali friends visiting them in the States.

They hike on and my mom and I follow, into an equally interminable downhill. It's hot, sandy and dusty, through an area that looks like it might have been burnt except that the trees are still whole, scattered intact like behemoth toothpicks across the forest floor. No shade. I fall behind and am out of water, and start tracking my mom's footprints in the dusty trail. The bottom of my feet ache. I catch up to my mom and we shuffle down the dusty and steep trail.

Where the JMT rejoins the PCT a PCTer with a smiling plush flower wrapped around his shouder strap, the kind you win at fairs, passes us. The first PCTer of the day; it's been odd to not have the steady stream of Nobo'rs passing us, beards, small packs, ear buds, and trail runners all blending their impressions into one in my mind.

We reach the boundary for Devil's Postpile National Monument, and cross a bridge over a river. We're both out of water, but with only 2 miles to go until Red's Meadow and the cafe there, we decide not to stop. Immediately we enter into a maze of paths, none of them marked for either the JMT or PCT. We stop a ranger and ask how to get to Red's on the JMT, and she cheerily points us forward, telling us to make a side trip to a waterfall. We pass under Devil's Postpile, which is an interesting geometric rock formation, but definitely NOT where we're supposed to be, as it's a side trip we had decided to pass on. Clean tourist people in hiking boots and t-shirts stare at us as we pass through. After climbing up a ridiculously steep hill we finally decide to turn around and go back to the bridge. I try to stay positive but we're both tired and irritated.

We find the PCT where it inconspicuously turns right up a slope. My mom is miserable in the heat and wants to continue without stopping for water. "No," I say, "go down to the river and let's filter some water."

We filter a liter each and then go. The trail is littered with horse manure and churned up until it resembles beach sand. It's just as difficult to walk on and the sand starts sifting into the mesh of my shoes until it collects just beneath the arch of my foot. We reach a road, and I'm not sure if that is the way up to Red's or if it's further up the trail. My mom sits down and starts crying. We agree for her to wait there while I check out the road. I pass some people with a screeching toddler, see the sign for Red's Meadow Resort, and call for my mom to follow.

It's early in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, and I stumble around, sweaty and disorientated, to find somewhere safe to leave my pack. When it's off I feel light and airy, adding to my dream-state. My mom has disappeared, and when I find her in the store, she's just bargained with the cashier to get one of the A-frame cottages for half the price. I get a chocolate ice-cream bar that's dipped in chocolate, then peanut butter and then chocolate again, and eat it as I follow my mom to our cabin.

I take my shower second, rubbing my legs in attempt to get the layer of dirt off, but it still clings in little dots to my pores. We go over to the cafe and get burgers, chips and potato salad. Then top it off with more ice cream. Tanka and Bebak come in and sit with us, beers in hand, and we talk.

More talking, sitting around in a tired daze, and then sleep.

Day 2, July 11th: Just before Lyell Fork to Garnet Lake. 11 miles (Note: these entries are from my trip last summer. I am writing them after-the-fact)

We wake up early and head out, but not early by PCTer standards as attested to by their steady passing, trekking poles clicking against rocks. The trail is forested, and joins the Tuolumne again as we pass through patches of Red Heather with its bright pink flowers and bristly, pine-needle-esque stalks poking up from the pine duff. We cross the river on a wood footbridge and begin rising out of the trees. The trail winds around small ridges of granite and alpine green, crossing more water, until we come out into what might be Maclure Creek. The creek is wide here, creating a tarn further up into the meadow. People are waiting to ford the river, fiddling with water shoes. After agonizing over the chore of taking my gaiters and shoes off, I step into the water. At first it is just cold, but as I stride in to my calves it begins to numb. I hobble over the loose rocks on the bottom, their smooth surfaces painful on my cold feet, and clamber up onto the soft trail.

I walk barefoot for a while to let my feet dry, when suddenly the mosquitos hit me. Why weren't they on the other side of the river? I find my headnet and struggle to put my toe socks on damp feet. Fortunately, the trail climbs quickly out of the narrow meadow, water rivulets sliding across the rough granite steps. Within five minutes I can put my headnet away. That wasn't so bad, I tell myself.

I'm fast on the uphill and get ahead of my mom. I hike near another guy who is waiting for his hiking partner to catch up. He's not American, but I can't place his accent from the couple of short exchanges we have. It sounds very familiar.

We have to cross a small snowfield as we climb up to Donahue Pass. The snow is still hard so it's slippery, and I have to screw my eyes shut against the light bouncing off of it. I probably should have brought sunglasses, even though I don't like them. I reach the top of Donahue and look back the way we came. Lyell Canyon is a small, bright strip of green between the rows of mountains. My mom comes and we pause to look at the clear pools of water that sit by the side of the trail. We say hello to the female ranger who is checking permits and head down the other side with a bunch of other hikers.

The mosquitos come. They come slowly so you think you can manage it, until suddenly you can't.

The response of the other hikers is to hike faster, and they quickly disappear down the trail until it is just me and my mom. While I'm fast on the uphill, I'm pretty slow on the downhill, where I'm careful to not slip or pound my feet or knees. For a while I try to outhike the mosquitos, try to move fast enough that they can't land, but they still buzz around my head in a cloud and get into my headnet. I hit my trekking poles against my ankles, swat at my legs and wrists. My headnet is hot and is making it hard to breath. Finally I stop and find my windpants, tugging them on over my shoes. Now the only thing that isn't covered are my hands, and even though I have to go slow not to overheat, it suddenly becomes almost bearable. I still want to melt into a puddle, but not nearly as fervently.

It's gorgeous on this side of the pass, bright green tussocks and clumps of small, twisted pine, with pools of mosquito-incubating water riddling it all like Orthanc after the Ents. I feel bad that I've missed it with the mosquitos, but oh well.

The trail descends from the mosquito swamplands and suddenly there is a breeze. I take my headnet off and pause to breath and wait for my mom to catch up. A PCTer comes up and I lament to her about the mosquitos. "What mosquitos?" she asks. "The mosquitos aren't bad at all."

"They're pretty bad," I say, lamely, and she hikes on.

The trail immediately becomes arid and the soil sandy as it descends to what the map euphemistically calls "Island Pass," and I imagine that the PCTer learned the truth of my words. We meet an awesome PCTer named Smiles when we are filtering water, who hiked the JMT solo when she was my age. We talk about hiking the PCT solo and young and she says go for it. She is definitely my favorite thru-hiker we have met, very positive and friendly.

We pause at Thousand Island Lakes, which is very pretty but hardly the golden child of the JMT like people claim (at least that's what I think). The sun is getting low as we pass Ruby Lake, with dark cliffs plunging into the clear water, desolate scree piles hugging the base. We only stop for a moment, but Ruby Lake is one of the most understated and dramatic lakes that I will see on the trip.

We set up camp at Garnet Lake, with the classic view of Banner and Ritter Peaks reflecting off of the surface. It's 14 miles to Red's Meadow from here, all downhill, and we plan on eating real food for dinner tomorrow. My hands got a little burned, and like everyone else I've noticed that I'm getting tanner on my right side faster than on my left, since we're walking south.