My three friends and I spent the first night car camping at Lake Mary to acclimate. Didn't get much sleep though, due to some dumb drunks next to us, as well as a couple of fighting bears running through the site the whole night. I think I got about 30 minutes of sleep.
We drove in to Postpile around 630, had a quick bar breakfast, and were off. We took a wrong turn (no turn really) at a three way junction. This added 2-3 miles to our trek and 800' of gain. Suck.
We backtracked and began ascending the real trail. About 2 miles up that, I began to bonk hard, probably from the lack of sleep the previous two nights. Up til now, my HR had been around 80% or higher and I was using a lot of glycogen. This is a limited energy source - which I knew - but I couldn't seem to drop below that, no matter what I did. We fought on, going up the trail that was somewhat steep (think Mt Wilson trail with a full pack). I just focused and fought and fought, eating, drinking, using different steps (lots of rest steps), until we finally made Minaret Lake.
ML is absolutely beautiful and has an insanely cool view of the Minaret spears and their glaciers. I tried to focus on the beauty around me but I started barfing up water and anything I ate (or would try to eat). I slept through the night maybe 6 hours and in the morning, things seemed as bad or worse with my body. We decided to take a 0 day for everyone to recover.
By 1:00, I was actually getting worse. I knew the next day would be 10 miles of class 1 and 2 cross country terrain towards 1000 Island Lake through Ediza and Nydiver. I would need my A-Game ready and bailing out mid journey would not be a very easy option. At 2, I made the really sad and disappointing decision to split from the group and depart.
I weighed myself when I got home; I lost about 8 pounds during this trip. This confirmed my decision to leave (at least to me). However, I was able to take in some beautiful scenary and hang out with some awesome friends.
A few pics:
Smoke from the nearby Western Sierras Fire
Unique guest on our lunch break
Minaret Creek
Minaret Lake
