Day 2 - Rock Creek Junction to Tyndall Creek

Distance: 16 mi
Elevation Gain: 3,744 ft
Starting Elevation: 8,200 ft
Ending Elevation: 9,600 ft

Head down, slowly ascending after Rock Creek.

The day of which we would not speak...the worst day... (or so we thought until the snow hit). On Wednesday, September 6th we woke up early, packed up our tent, ate a warm breakfast and were ready to start the trail. And then everything went downhill. First, our 3 liter Camelback emptied its contents inside Pat's pack, soaking nearly everything in his bag. An unpleasant start, but we knew that if we could get an hour break in the sunshine later that day we could dry everything off.

That would not deter us! We put on our sandals first thing in the morning and crossed Rock Creek (a creek crossing was such a novelty at that point!). We began our ascent out of the Rock Creek Junction area and started our six-mile hike to Crabtree Meadow. About half a mile from Crabtree Meadow, it hit me. Altitude sickness. I began to experience the chills and nausea, did not want to eat or drink, and just felt overall like I couldn't move anymore. We pushed ourselves to Crabtree Meadow but at the site of another creek crossing, I lost my motivation. Not to mention it was cold...and it started to rain. Pat quickly set up our tent and I climbed in to warm up, took some Tylenol, and fell asleep. The rain was light but constant and it lulled me into a late morning nap.

Around 1pm I woke up feeling much better. We calculated that we had 8 to 9 miles to go to make it to our next junction, Tyndall Creek. We wanted to get far enough today to make our ascent over Forester Pass the next day a bit easier. We also wanted to sleep at a lower elevation to stay warmer. Feeling a bit refreshed, we pushed ourselves along in a cool and rainy mist during our final miles for the day. Every so often the sun escaped from behind the dark clouds and illuminated the valleys and hillsides we walked through. We even saw a rainbow over the clear and icy alpine lakes. We eventually made it to Tyndall Creek around 7:30 that evening. We quickly set up our tent, I climbed in, and not long after, hit with another bout of altitude sickness, threw up. What a day!

Crabtree Meadow during the late morning/early afternoon layover in mist and rain.