Snow Creek Cabin, Yosemite

 

At the beginning of this year I was able to join a hike to Snow Creek Cabin. THE Snow Creek Cabin. A dream of mine, a wish list item finally about to be checked off. It started with a glorious snow storm swooping in to cover us the night before. There may have been some drunken shenanigans by the recreation fireplace (before the lodge was open). We were just keeping warm from the inside out. The next morning was a stunning, clear morning with blue skies and the perfect 3 year old drawn wispy clouds.

Freshly plowed roads led us to our adventure. But we got a late start. First we had to get some snacks. Wait, now someone has to have a BM. Maybe we can park here? No actually that is just a giant slush filled puddle so we’re stuck. Good thing someone brought a shovel. Finally a parking space, finally everyone is ready, finally we start walking.

This is no small adventure for the weak of soul. No sir. This hike led us first past Mirror Lake, gazing up at the striking Tissiak (Half Dome), forever crying over her lost love. About two miles in we start the climb but not without a little smokey inspiration. It’s now just past noon.

Slowly we take one switchback at a time. Pre-psyched by the idea of hiking up 108 switch backs, uphill and then up 7 more. Time to get into the right mindset. The progress is always slow, the breathing heavy, the lungs icy cold and the views absolutely stunning.

Days passed but maybe it was only a few hours. Some of us fell behind and others of us left snacks of inspiration along the trail. Little bits of tasty sustenance in the snow along the trail to be found by our friends and give them a breathless giggle and boost of energy. Whenever they found them we could hear a distant whoop of excitement.

We take a break, we eat, our friends catch up and we carry on to next set of switchbacks. Only 7 more, right? The sun is low… lower than we expected it to be at this time. We carry on, breaking trail in our borrowed snow shoes. Only a few of us have been this way once before. A small indent in the snow is all we have to follow, that and the occasional license plate trail blazer in the trees.

Awhile later, too long later, the second set of switchbacks loom before us and it’s almost dark. We’ve lost half our group again. Now there are three of us in the front. We switch off breaking trail straight up the hill because we can’t see where the trail is anymore, only where a skier passed through after the recent snow. We trade off who breaks trail and now we are using headlamps and staying close to each other. The snow is at our waist and everything is so heavy. It’s the longest seven switchbacks I have ever skipped and walked straight up.

At the top, breathless, exhausted, sweating, we see headlamps below and start whooping for our friends and hear a happy response. We carry on because we’re not there yet. Only 2 miles more? We’re not sure but it’s ahead of us and it’s no time to stop walking and let the sweat freeze. When we get to the split in the trail where we could go off trail or stay on the trail our fearless leader hesitated. He had only gone off trail here but felt that it would be better to stay on trail this time since it was dark.

We trudged on, straining to see ambiguous descriptions in our halo of lights shining from our foreheads. Ambiguous as: find the small meadow through a thin grouping of trees on the right, cross the meadow and peer through the trees and you should see a two story building. Well okay then. You can’t hide a two story building in a forest wilderness right?

The trudging continued. On and on and on. We back tracked. The other half of our group found us. Off trail, back on trail, off trail again. Then we had a problem. Someones feet were going numb. Time to stop and regroup. We started a fire, some of us went to look in other areas, some of us gathered wood, some of us made food. We poured over maps and used GPS. Everything said we were right there. It’s right there! I stared into the dark woods with my headlamp and saw nothing but white mounds. I felt something pull me in a direction but I ignored it and continued getting wood. The fire was burning a deep pit in the snow. I never realized how deep it was.

It turns out a two story building can be buried in snow. We couldn’t find it. Someones pants were now frozen and anxiety was growing. Feet were cold, hands were cold and worse than the cold was the hopelessness setting in. We didn’t have the right gear to camp in the snow. We had summer sleeping bags because we thought we were going to sleep by a fireplace in a cabin, a two story fucking cabin.

A decision was made, it was midnight, we hiked part way back down the trail, found the least blustery spot by the trail, packed it down and laid out everything we had to sleep on. Sleep pads, some tarp, sleeping bags and we all slept together. We snuggled in so close I had a beard melt in my face and that was awful. At 2am we said goodnight and hoped to find each other alive in the morning. A reality none of us let set in.

We were all alive in the morning. The hike down was beautiful but we were hungry and beaten down.

Two weeks later some of us tried again, and succeeded. We got an earlier start this time.