Tuolumne Meadows

Tuesday, July 13, brought a phone call from Dave. They hiked into Tuolumne Meadows at PCT mile 942.5. See PCT Half Mile maps, California section H, page 27. They stopped at the general store to resupply food and look for a new sleeping pad. Sadly, the only gear they had was for climbers. I will send him my oh so very special and wonderful sleeping pad. Ah, the sacrifices we make for those we love! I'll send it on to their next stop, so he'll have to deal with what he has until about next Monday. They were able to load up with 6 days worth of food.

Then they moved on to the walk-in Campground and set up their tents. While Dave and I were on the phone, around 7:00 pm, hikers began swarming into the campsight. Some campers were getting a bit too close to Dave's tent, so he started talking to me about how badly he snores. It worked, the hikers moved away. Now he just had to find a way to get rid of the mosquitoes. The snoring didn't seem to bother them. Zero did say that Dave is not using enough deet. (Really, Dave doesn't snore.)

Dave's story of the day was about fishing. He said he is being tortured by the beautiful lakes and streams and not having a rod. He did remind me that he doesn't have time to fish, much less want to carry the weight, but oh, he is so needing to fish. At one point today, he took some small yellow flowers and tossed them into a lake. Out of 10 flowers, he got 8 bites! The fish were going wild! He passed an angler out fly fishing and Dave shared with them his flower findings and suggested that they use a Parachute Adams. The angler agreed. Hopefully he had good luck with that advice.

Dave & Team Far Sight's plan had been to spend a couple of days in Yosemite, seeing the sights and hiking half dome. Because they are behind schedule, they are going to skip the extra 20 miles of the John Muir Trail and stay on the PCT. They are working toward getting to PCT mile 1018 by Monday.

The mood of the phone call was light and there was a lot of laughing. Dave was in a wonderful mood. When he wasn't talking to me, he was joking with Zero. It is great to know that he's having fun out on the trial.

The Spot just came in - check out where Dave is spending tonight on google maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=37.87271,-119.3533&ll=37.87271,-119.3533&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Trail Angel Jane