went up a mountain and slid down on my butt

7:45 am : in the restaurant at paradise inn, bleary-eyed, sleepy and hungry

8:00 am : chomp on oatmeal pancakes and wash it down with coffee

8:10 am : walk to the ranger station. ask the ranger "how does one get to camp muir?"

8:11 am : stare ranger in the eye while she gives you the "just another dumb inexperienced climber without a clue" look

8:12 am : wish she'd quit giving you the "just another dumb inexperienced climber without a clue" look

8:13 am : pick up trail map and smile at the updated weather forecast which predicts partly cloudy weather

8:14 am : walk back out into the mild rain and figure that the other part of the forecast probably means "partly sunny". ignore rain

8:15 am : lock car and hit the "i don't need to do this hike, i can just go back home, watch a movie and tell everyone i did the hike" moment that always precedes a hike.

8:20 am : start up the trail. hit previously mentioned moment 4 minutes into the hike but trudge on



the first part of the hike is along the skyline trail upto pebble creek. this is a really picturesque hike which i'm sure is spectacular in summer. it has alpine meadows on both sides for a couple of miles. it's all good until pebble creek. the snowfield starts a few hundred feet from pebble creek. this is also the end of the trail. there's a sign there with a picture of 2 hikers hidden in falling snow with the caption "this could me you". it goes on to say "in good weather many climbers have been known to have reached camp muir safely but even experienced climbers have died since the weather changes quite fast".

just as i stood there eating a power bar, a squirrel hopped energetically up to me. he looked eagerly at my power bar. considering there were even hardly any plants around i guess power bars are his staple diet! he was a frisky little critter.


the path through the snowfield is marked by small, frail flags which more often than not are on the ground partly hidden under falling snow. it was snowing (mild) when i reached the snowfield and i couldn't see too far (visibility around 60-70 feet). after a few hundred feet i couldn't see the trail. i was one of the first few hikers and so had no footprints to follow. i walked about there for about 20 minutes trying to find the trail. i decided to wait for the next set of climbers and go up with them failing which i'd give in to the 8:15 am impulse. i had to wait there for almost a half hour till i saw the next set of hikers come up.


me : yo. i'm a moron who decided to do camp muir alone

craig, pat, dale, phil : yes, you're a moron

me : can i tag along with you guys?

craig, pat, dale, phil : yes, we're being nice to morons on this hike. tag along.


and so we hiked up with me bringing up the rear, struggling to kick my feet into the hard-packed snow that was partly ice. i slipped and struggled until craig gave me his pole to use. if they could, my calf muscles would have crawled up the slope and thanked him.


the weather stayed overcast through the entire climb with pat trying his "it's really partly cloudy joke" till we were ready to push him into a crevasse. after a while he started singing. by then we were looking for a crevasse to throw ourselves into (i'm just kidding here pat!). craig did an awesome job of finding the flags and leading us up.

	this sign just before you enter the snowfield isn't terribly encouraging. i stood there for a few minutes before moving on! (click on images for larger views)
	phil and me on the way. my lips were frozen and i was slurring most of the way up.
	we plodded our way up in some pretty crappy weather. this is about when pat broke into song
	after what seemed like hours we saw muir. my feet cramped up a few hundred feet below muir and i slowed everyone down. a bunch of rocks never looked so good
	dale, craig and pat (in order). pat told us about craig's date with a marmot on the way down. we saw a few while descending.
	the way back down was easy, we sat on garbage bags and slid down a lot of the way!
	how did we feel when we got back down? this pretty much says it all!

and that folks, was the hike upto camp muir and back. i'm looking forward to heading back there sometime soon.