The only sleeping bag Sarah had was one only rated for 55 degrees.... Needless to say, it was colder than that. Joe kindly gave her his sleeping bag and he slept in hers. He was pretty cold most of the night.
We woke up to a chilly, cloudy morning. It got a little better as the trail moved away from the lake some. I got a few blisters on my feet the first day, but mole skin really helped that for the hike back. When we got to the swampy section (last half mile or so) it got hot! It was so weird. You could definitely tell when the breeze was coming from inland or from the lake. The inland breeze did not help one bit.
I can't speak for Sarah, but Joe and I are definitely sore.
-Miranda
Our packs during our rest.
Sarah and I hanging out before heading out again.
Ice still hanging on to the edge of the sea caves.
The three of us on our last leg of the hike.
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Yesterday Joe's friend, Scott, and Scott's cousin, Adam came out and we all went to Meyer's Beach to walk to the Sea Caves. I've never been out there in winter. There was a lot of really neat things. I, being an idiot, forgot my camera. So no pictures. :( Sorry. We did walk about 7-8 miles. So, that was quite a walk, and there were tons of people there, but it was still neat.
-Miranda
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We drove to Sequoia National Park and went to see the second largest tree in the world, General Grant. We then decided to head to the Redwood Mountain Grove which has many large trees. Unfortunately, there were 2 hiking loops that were both 6 miles long. We chose one that looked interesting and took that not really expecting to do the entire loop. We saw some huge stumps from an old logging camp, the Hart Tree, which is one of the largest sequoias, and Fallen Goliath, which was a huge sequoia that feel down a long time ago. I assume at least a couple hundred years ago. We did end up doing the entire loop which was a bit painful after our many miles from the last couple days. However, we did get to see a momma Black Bear and her three cubs. They were across a creek from the trail we were on which was nice. I felt no need to meet one on the trail.
-Miranda
CLICK FOR VIDEO:Hart Tree
General Grant. This tree is about 40 feet in diameter and the second largest tree in the world (by volume).
A very large stump from when a logging camp was there many years ago.
A large, dead, burned out sequoia.
There were places were there would be a number of large sequoias near each other. This is part of the trail. Joe and I were basically in the middle of the triangle (so the tree on the left is actually slightly in front of us)
Toan and I standing near the roots on the Fallen Goliath.
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We decided to go for a hike and camp in the wilderness today. We got a wilderness permit (free) and packed up our packs to hike up to El Capitan. The guy at the place that gave us the permit said it was about 8 miles (one way) with an elevation change of about 3000 feet. We hiked for about 4 miles, had lunch, then kept on going up the steepest part of the hike. We only made it another two miles to where it flattened out before we decided to just make camp. Plus, the sign at the start of the hike said El Capitan was 10 miles away, not 8. We dropped our stuff off at camp and Joe and I decided to see if we could make it to the mountain. Well, we did... but it was another 4 miles... one way. We just about doubled our hike. The view was awesome, but we were hurting pretty bad by the time we got back to camp where Toan was sitting waiting for us with a fire going. Dinner sure tasted good.
-Miranda
Our camp. Toan is trying to warm up by the fire while Joe's working on getting dishes clean enough for breakfast.
Our break spot by a stream on our way back.
El Capitan from the top. Joe and I didn't hike all the way out, or even onto, the mountain. This view was pretty spectacular. The valley was huge!
El Capitan from the ground in front of it in Yosemite Valley. Where we were standing the day before is just to the left in the photo.
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I can't believe Miranda Followed me through that Dungeon!!! Imagine the scariest possible Formations, And Layout, and thats what the catacombs were. We were completely underground, Hiking, Crawling, and stomach wriggling through over a mile of Twisty turney incredibly Crazy Cave, Over 3 hours of pitch black silence. Dropped down holes.. Climbed up 2ftx10inch tunnels which Angled and descended.. Stomach Crawled on Sharp Bolbous Lava Chunks With Lava Drip spikes less than a foot above.. .
Pushed myself through some parts which required "Sucking it in"...
Came back a confusing and different route, worried it would dead end... Wow. Was super cool, We both have Bruised and Red Elbows and shins... We found a guy in the caves who was lost and retreating
We helped get him pointed in proper direction. Some Pictures showing some of the tight spots should be forthcoming soon.UPDATE: Here are some photos taken inside the catacombs.
Formations on the wall. Very smooth feeling. We kept joking that it looks like melted chocolate.
This was basically on the ceiling. It's a spot where it fell off and into the lava, so it's all rough instead of being smooth like other parts.
Me crawling through one of the worst parts of the catacombs. This brought us back to where we had left our backpack before crawling through another skinny, angled part to get to the section we took back.
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