Day 2: 8/7/20
Start time: 6:15 A.M.
Finish time: 6:15 P.M.
Total time: 12 hours
Mile Marker: 47.3
Miles Hiked Today: 24.2
This morning I could not get out of bed. I was hoping to start at 5:00 A.M. again, but I really needed the extra hour of sleep. The day started with a somewhat boring trek down a flat, sandy trail. I could have made a sandcastle with the amount I kept pouring out of my shoes. When I finally got to the ascent of Donuhue Pass, I had that "Here we go!" moment. I rounded the corner and saw the first big mountains with snow still in shaded contours and a roaring creek off to my right. Then a small lake when I got up to the base. Yosemite valley is incredible, but much of the first section routes around it through shrub brushes and a burned area. This section kicked off the JMT experience I was looking for.
Once I made it over Donohue that marked the exit from Yosemite. The rest of the hiking was arguably easier than yesterday, but carrying an extra 3.5 days of food made a serious difference in my pace. I'm not looking forward to the 5 day resupply out of Muir Trail Ranch.
The other delay of the day was the agony of trying to use my clogged water filter. I finally rage quit and flipped over to my emergency purification tablets, which are nice to have but not ideal. If you've ever accidentally drank pool water, think of that taste. Then imagine you're sweating to death with no tree cover and your only option is to drink liters of it voluntarily. That's what purification tablets are like.
Around 2:00 P.M. I decided I don't have enough tablets, so I might as well try percussive maintenance to see if that helps the filter. It didn't remove any clogs, but it did free the factory lock so I could unscrew it. It looked like the clean sides of the filaments had become closed/clogged. I brushed them with my toothbrush and soaked them in clean water. It made enough of a difference to make filtering bearable. I am personally excited to learn over the next two days if I've genuinely fixed the problem, or if I've created a delightful cross contamination loop of false hope that allows the parasites to host a dance party in my intestinal tract.
After that the rest of the day was smooth sailing, if exhausting. I was hoping to quit earlier to get more sleep tonight, but I needed to make my miles. I also didn't encounter any signs of the shin splints coming back, so I'm cautiously optimistic the rest of the trip will work out.