Theodore Solomons Trail day 4, Cliff Creek to a camp below Elizabeth Pass

Something is definitely wrong with me.

I mean not just that I like to disappear for weeks at a time in the mountains and desert. I mean that I am having a hard time doing it.

I noticed I was short of breath climbing over Cottonwood Pass, but assumed my lack of conditioning was to blame. That didn’t account for the nausea, but I attributed that to the McDs I’d had for dinner the night before.

Every day of this hike I’ve had less endurance, stopping to wheeze for breath every few hundred yards. I hiked much faster and with less effort on my training hikes in Boulder. I’m having to stop and catch my breath just doing camp chores. I haven’t had much appetite either, and I am going to carry a couple of pounds of food into my Cedar Grove resupply. There has been a lot of watermelon snow, maybe I am being poisoned by those nasty little dinoflagellates spewing their toxins into the streams below the snowfields.

The first item of business this morning was to ford Cliff Creek, which is supposed to be a proxy for how hard it will be to ford the Kaweah. I had camped on the near side last night as the water looked high, a lot of water busting its way down the canyon.

It wasn’t much lower in the morning but the ford was made easy by a band of gravel banked up behind some rocks making for shallow footing in the fast water. First ford out of the way, I made it down through Redwood Meadows to the Kaweah River in good time.

The valley above Redwood Meadows sports a few dozen impressive Sequoias (not that there’s any other kind) plus either some Redwoods or large cedars. I assume the former given the place name. I didn’t know that Redwoods grew anywhere but the coast, and that they would share habitat with Sequoias. So I guess I learned something.

The Kaweah was running strong and fast but careful scouting revealed a path across with only one deep channel. It was narrow enough to bridge with one big lunge. Not dangerous if you make it, but a good chance of getting swept away if you come up short.

I took a break on the far bank and did some washing and headed uphill to Elizabeth Pass some 5 miles and 5000 feet above.

I paced myself slower and slower as the heat and whatever it is that’s sapping my strength took their toll. Am I just getting old? I certainly could do these kinds of hikes last year. It doesn’t seem fair that I should get old and decrepit in just one year, so I’ll hope this just some passing illness.

The hike up the gorge of the Kaweah was stupendous, sheer smooth granite walls flowing up to jagged crests.

 

 

Though it is only 5 miles up to the pass, I was really dragging after 3 and decided to make camp on a sloping bench. Just as well, as the clouds that had been rumbling in the opposite crest began drifting over to my ridge where they parked themselves , cooling the afternoon with a couple hours of showers.

I’ll climb the remaining 2k of the pass tomorrow. In the meantime I have stellar views and a dry warm bed. My serenity is marred only by the annoying marmot who keeps chirping right by my tent.