These images are from our thru-hike of the JMT in 98. We hiked from August 16 through September 3, southbound. The hike took 18 days to complete, covering about 220 miles. Solophile and I are indebted to Big Bird (of AT 97 fame) for the splendid hospitality in the Bay City, the time he took off to be our personal tour guide, and the great hitch out to Yosemite.
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Happy Solophile By daybreak, Solophile couldn't stand it any more. We had laid awake in the tent just yards away from our suspended food supplies and that dang bear. We envisioned our hike coming to a premature end before we had even done a dozen miles. Add to that getting a ticket for feeding the bears, another for littering, and having to clean up the certain mess didn't help us doze even after Bruno's sounds disappeared. I had some trouble catching my breath at time (altitude adjustment) and Solophile felt tremors of an earthquake at one point. Some night. So, with daylight it was time to face the music. What a wonderful surprise! Solophile didn't like the idea of just using the nylon lead from the bearline to draw the cable tight, so she talked me into climbing up the tree to the end of the cable line and securing a separate paracord to the eyelet. We tied her paracord to a different tree. The nylon was simply shredded where I had lashed it to the one tree, but the bear never saw the paracord keeping the cable aloft. That's a bear canister perched atop Solophile. It stood out in the middle of the clearing all night -- Bruno didn't even bother to tip it over. |
