Mere moments ago I was switchbacking through the night, half dome below me as a surreal beacon of white rising out the blackness of the valley, pausing periodically for the dull blue glow of Adam's head lamp beneath me on a path through the snow covered chinquapin. Now, cutting the eastern flank of Cloud's Rest Minor the wind has picked up once more and the snow has shifted from lazy furlong flurries to feature flattening whiteness; blizzard conditions. Getting desperate and already cold I push hard looking for a place to place the tent, our shelter. I know full well that Adam is going to be upset that I am so far ahead of him on the trail in conditions like these, but I know shelter is key to both of us getting through this in the best shape. I'm not sure if I can feel my toes, my top lip has gone numb, and the wind gusts cut right up the inseam of my climbing pants grabbing, pulling, and pushing out all the pockets of warmth I've created. To stay warm I move. To pause is to risk getting cold. I cut trail a couple of times and head up to the ridge line hoping to find something; just a little bit of flatness away from rock fall and maybe with a sheltering tree, but nothing is out here. I push on and see a few places in trail that could accommodate the tent, but then looking up I can see that there is a high pile of rocks that is already letting loose of chunks of ice and I keep going. The trial cuts back onto a shoulder, the trial whites out and a few triple rock stacks are the only foreseeable markers. I know that somewhere here is our best chance. In the sea foam night I hunt out 5 foot areas at a times, because its all I can see between the falling snow and the cloud. My boots are iced, my cotton socks are soaked, my hands hide like children deep in their pockets and then suddenly in a gust I see the site. I immediately drop pack against the tree and dig out the tent from my pack. I've never set up this tent before, besides opening up the spine once in my apartment back in Oakland and I got a little taste for it a week ago helping Doris with her tent, which happens to be the exact same model. Needless to say neither of these experiences could have prepared me for putting the shelter up in a blizzard, on a ridge with ripping winds. I manage to get the footprint down after juggling some rocks on corners. Then I whip the tent out, uncurling it like a tongue and just then the mouth of the storm opens up and I can't see shit. My head lamp doesn't even extended out to the other side of the tent. As Adam noted later it was like warp speed in star wars; bright white things zinging by you and a complete in ability to see directly ahead of you. By the time I've got the spine together and assured myself the various components of the tent haven't blown away I squat down to start attaching the pulls and I realize there is an inch of snow now on top of the un-errect tent. Fuck, that means that snow or at least some of it is going to be in the tent. My hands cold stoned I clumsily clip in the tent to the poles and begin to worry about Adam. He should have arrived by now. I can't even see the trail, but I know I would have heard the crushing of this new earth if he came by. I refocused away from the fear, the cold, the uncertainty and narrowed in ..ing the shelter by covering it with the rain fly. I pulled it out of the bag and the wind nearly ripped it from my hands. I quickly went about snapping it into the base of the tent, but all along not being able to see the forest through the trees or in the case the tent through the storm. I hadn't put the stakes in yet and had just been holding the tent in place, fighting the winds desire to take it off to the whitened abyss beyond where I could see, where I surely felt there was a cliff or at least rapid drop off. I tossed my bag in the tent, snow covered and drove in a couple of the stakes. Shelter done, find Adam. I started back for the trail and there in the white night I could see light. I yelled out but got no response, but saw the trajectory change. At that moment I realized how much warmth I had lost not moving, but setting up the tent. I told Adam and he immediately knew the concern. We hadn't exactly planned a snow camping trip, so I was a little unprepared in material goods, my will as always was ready and stubborn for the adventure. Inside the tent I quickly set up my bag, bivy and buried in, trying to regain warmth. Adam continued to secure the rain fly which I had done a mediocre job of in my haste. Before I could completely comprehend it, Adam was in the tent in his bag. I was warming and hearing the warning of the sky in shakes and shutters upon the seams and sinew of the tent and then I was out like a Jack London story, but where the character wakes in the morning. And what a waking it was.
Around 5:30 light had begun to filter over the tent. My body felt, dry, warm and full of piss. I heard some precipitation hit the tent and I thought to myself what trek down it was going to be in the falling snow. Trying to avoid the getting out of bed and the tent to find some place to urinate, I concentrated hard on well not concentrating and was able to crash out for almost an hour more. I knew sunrise was to be near 6:30am so bladder full and brain full of the possibilities outside the tent I mad the first valiant attempt to leave. My shoes were in the vestibule and luckily I had closed the tongues, because the snow had blown all over them and they were indeed boot-cicles. Both pressing matters of the morning help me push my feet into the boots, I'm not sure if my feet gave or if the boots gave, but eventually I was in them. The shoelaces were like trying to tie knots with bailing wire, so for the time being I let them just be. I unzipped the vestibule to a clear topped sky, shiny blue with morning, resting oppressively on a quickly moving, growing, surging series of valleys with tidal wells of clouds. This was not the world I bedded down to last night, belly without dinner, and body merely seeking warmth above all else. I stepped out into half a foot of fresh snow, which sealed the tent nicely into our location and below me stretched out the Yosemite that few see.
With the first order of business taken care of, I zipped up my pants and took a couple frames of half dome, getting the mornings first snaking rays of light upon its northern face where the rocks pile and fall like the skin of an onion. She and the rest of the landscape bask in the unbelievably white, calm, fragile and hospitable exuberance of morning. I dizzy myself with the dances of clouds.
Those running down the Merced River Gorge, spilling through little Yosemite, the frost bitten campground that I avoid like the plague in the winter and those spilling forth from the northern wall of Yosemite valley filling it up tide pool in a winter's rough surf. The sun finally breaks high enough from the clouds to illuminate our little protective dome and the light and my hooting and hollering over the beautiful changes of morning stir Adam out of the tent. We decide quickly upon an ascent of Clouds Rest. Quickly we fill our bellies with what we were not able to eat last night due to the severity of weather. Our last meal being a snack stop at least an hour and a half before bedding down, most of that energy being burned on the ascent to the campsite. We head off in the sun up a partially marked trail, heavy with crystal cold light snow. The world is suddenly more beautiful than imagination. The red glow from the trees against the white white of the recently fallen snow and the blue blue of the sky at 9,000ft and then to look in any direction and see sharp peaks and deep valleys that hold up the universe with seas of clouds feeding them. How much the weather-environment shapes my emotions when on trail. Our trip started Saturday around 3:30pm when we realized the rain was going to put a halt to the bouldering in the valley. We had returned to campsite 14 where we had bivyed out on the ground the night before after rolling in a little after midnight. We began contemplating what to do. We can't climb anymore, its cold and wet, how about hitting up some trail? Luckily when leaving Oakland Adam had sent me back up to my place to grab my hiking boots and a plastic bag to keep things dry otherwise I really would have been up shit creek without a paddle. On the picnic bench we weighed our options over a flask of Kajmir brandy/whiskey/vanilla. The heavy clouds and coolness that came to my body from sitting almost made me was to say, lets go home, but then in an instant I could feel the choice boil up inside me, my will solidify and stubborn itself around a goal, something that Adam had planted earlier; Clouds Rest. When hesitation arises in choosing I find it always best to choose on the side of doing rather than not doing. Hesitation is merely a sign that growth shall come of an event. Events that are chosen against with no hesitation are to be trusted, for the reason, logic, and decision making of the sub-conscious is usually swift, keen, and correctly assesses one's skills and vulnerabilities. With the decision in hand the emotional weight on the weather still weighed heavy upon me as we made our way up the mist trail in the misting evening light. Above Nevada falls the sun had already fallen and suddenly a break in the clouds set free the moon. Its rays sharper than the sun, we turned out headlamps off and laughed at our fortune, at the beauty and of light and night in the Sierras. This joy burst forth in our steps and we covered about 6 miles with out much thought, past little Yosemite, past the junction to half dome, and up to the trail break for clouds rest. Along the way we met two old men of the earth who were coming down from their first climb in 25 years. Mike, a well worn English looking chap and Bill who sported a Sam Elliot mustache had knocked out Snake Dyke on half dome with not much time to spare, even got a little dusting of snow before making it to the cables to descend to safety. In the moon light we burned our fiery desires of the this place for each other and then bid each a good night. However the world began to change again our spirits also began changed. The second arm of the storm began to swing itself over us. The moon disappeared and the rain appeared and then shortly the snow. We began and ended our final ascent is this heaviness, laced with wind wisps of fear. Yet in the morning, in the clear cut sky and sun as we ascended Clouds Rest through thick snow the emotions of the night before had been shed off like so much sun upon pine needles. From on top of Clouds Rest, the little sharp ridge line crest of 9,926ft the world opened up like swimming pool and us upon the high dive, looking out into the deep depths below and the white sharp bleacher seating of the Sierra peaks.
Rocks piled up around us like snot nosed children, long icicles obeying the pull of gravity. Below in Yosemite Valley we watched the clouds dance and to the east we watched the mountains cut the morning sky into striated clouds where the border of Yosemite park arbitrarily lies. The weather-environment induced emotional roller coaster rode high as we descended through the winter wonderland where we were the only travelers besides the tracks of squirrels, foxes and one very hardy tree frog singing out into the cold morning. We collapsed base camp and flew down the slopes where the world was beginning to melt and rain fell from the trees not the sky. The surface area of trees and the exposure they provide precipitation for the sun's rays greatly increases the speed that now goes from the sky to the river. The rivers and falls had swollen an additional 30% from yesterday. A pack of snow on a bare mountain side does not have the same speed of liquid conversion as it does on trees. The snow cushioned every step and the ice insulated my boots. Once back on the John Muir Trail the world also began to steam. Every rock, every tree, every thing dark pushed for visible swirls of moisture that the sun illuminated like spirits and in each specter a cornucopia of scent. We descended our 5,400 feet over 10.5 miles rather quickly with a wildness in our eyes that invited many conversations with casual hikers around Vernal and Nevada falls. As we cut through Upper Pines Campground towards Adam's vehicle, hands still rough from bouldering on Midnight Lightening and the storm last night the word that slipped between us to describe the trip was epic.
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