About once per year, I like to get out for a long solo backpack trip. It can be good for cleaning out the cobwebs.

On the weekend prior to July Fourth, I drove up to Yosemite National Park and did a long trip, about twenty miles per day, for three days. The pack weighed about 32 pounds at the start. Actually, I was packed for 5-6 days, but two details bothered me along the way. The weather was very hot, and as a result, there were lots of mosquitos. When I am camping high around 8000-9000 feet, I expect it to be cool at night, with temperatures close to freezing by dawn. Instead, it was 45-50 degrees F. I had a good mosquito net shelter that I camped in, but the mosquitos continued to dine on me while I was hiking along the trail. After the first two days of it, I decided to change things around and "made a run" for the Hetch Hetchy Road. The mosquito problem got worse on that third day, but I was heading more downhill, so I tried to outrun the little suckers.

For the two nights out, I camped in the open (hoping that breeze would discourage the mosquitos), but I could hear the whine all night long outside the netting. After noon of the first day, near Pate Valley, I didn't see anybody until noon of the third day, near Lake Vernon.

By 4 PM on the third day, I had arrived at the Hetch Hetchy dam, and I waited to hitch a ride back into the park to get back to my car at the start. The air temperature at Hetch Hetchy was 105 degrees F in the shade. When I arrived at home, I had lost ten pounds! Half of that was temporary dehydration.

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