Day 20: Donahue Pass

The Wicked Witch of the West visited our tent last night. I think she may have mistaken our tent for Dorothy's house. The wind blew through our campsite like a tornado and woke both of us up. The wind refused to leave our side until a little bit after 3am which is when I finally relaxed and snoozed. At 7:45 am, usually the time when we are packing up camp to leave, we woke up.

The morning continued to be slower than usual, but instead of stressing about it we enjoyed a Sunday morning style breakfast. I did Sudoku while munching on my "Spiderwoman breakfast" and Replay read Time Magazine. It was almost like we hadn't officially decided to leave the pleasures of "town" behind us.

As the clock hands ticked towards 12:00, Replay decided that we should continue to enjoy our relaxing morning and chill on a flat rock by Red's Creek. The sun wasn't too hot yet and both of us agreed that our tan lines were a bit out of control. I was getting a really lovely knee brace tan that was just all too noticeable! An hour passed and we agreed that it was time to tackle Donahue Pass.

It wasn't long before we were at the summit relaxing yet again on a big flat rock. Funny enough while enjoying the sunshine from this new rock we met Spiderwoman. She was the person whose breakfast we enjoyed just 6 hours prior. She had shipped food to herself without realizing she had a whey allergy. All of her homemade breakfast meals included dehydrated vanilla whey so she left them in a box at our last motel for anyone to enjoy. Not wanting to turn down free food we packed up enough to fulfill our breakfast requirement until we arrived in Yosemite. We thanked her for her generosity and wished her the best of luck with the rest of her hike.

Going down is never as easy as going up. Everyone swears that the downhill is the best part of the climb, but it just kills my knees. I slowed my pace and took extra time to place my poles and feet with each step. This of course slowed my pace down and soon enough Replay was just a spot amongst the rocks and boulders lining the trail. Lost in my thoughts of careful foot placement I didn't realize when Replay was no longer in front of me. This quickly became a problem.

At the start of the morning we had discussed sleeping at Base Camp, but when I passed the area Replay was nowhere to be found. I figured she had kept walking, zening out, enjoying the ease of the hike. Little did I know at that moment that she had stopped for a bathroom break and thrown her pack on the trail so that when I passed I'd notice that she. Well not so much because I blew past her.

Once it started to get closer to dinner time I began to wonder why she hadn't stopped yet. I kept looking in all the perfect dinner spots, but she never appeared. Frantic Jess started coming out in full force around 6:30. Tears formed around 6:45 and yelling, which went unanswered, began around 7. I did pass a couple groups of hikers one of which mentioned they had seen the friend I described pass them about an hour ago. This fact sent me into a total state of panic. My pace increased, my heart rate shot up, and my tears got bigger. In my gut I thought she was behind me, but in my head it didn't match up since the previous group had told me that she was a fair distance up the trail.

At somepoint, I turned around a saw 4 hikers who I had passed coming down from the Donahue Summit. I inquired about my friend and they too believed she was up ahead of me. Just then I heard someone calling my name. Running down the trail was Replay. To say it was a teary reunion would be an understatement. I pretty much lost it for about 5 minutes.

In between my sobs, Replay told me how she had been jogging for the last 20 minutes trying to catch up to me. She had seen me pass while visitng the woodland ladies room. Due to the fact that Replay is my perfect hiking partner she knew I wouldn't stop walking until I found her. It was then that she broke into a jog and managed to catch up to me.

Ah I so love my hiking partner!