Well … where should I begin? I injured my neck. Over the last month or more I have been in incredible pain. I have not been able to sleep well. The pain has gone down into my shoulders and arms now. I am 99% sure it was injured when I was rafting to Lake Eleanor Falls. It was quite windy and choppy and I had to work very hard at the paddling to the waterfall and back. That was around May 1. After that trip, the pain started but it was not very noticeable at first. It did not even occur to me it was caused by the rafting. I was still able to hike. We went to Shelter Cove on our anniversary trip. I made the big backpacking trip to Kendrick Falls. I was taking pain killers but I had no problems on that trip. The neck kept getting worse and worse. It was not getting better. I could not hike any longer. I had to go to the doctor. That is always a big ordeal. He just said go get an x-ray and come back in a week. So I did. Then he basically said I have arthritis in my neck and should do neck exercises. Humm …
Only in the last week has my neck finally started to get better. I feel like it is finally healing now. I wanted to get out hiking one last time. It is going to be 180 degrees or something ridiculous next week and for the week after that as well. The apocalypse is here. This would be my last chance to hike for the summer. If my wife and mom find out, they will say I am stupid for going hiking! There will be a fallout. Well my wife did not say I am stupid but my mom might when she reads this.
I decided to go to the Eastern Sierra for the day. Almost all the waterfalls there face towards the east (which should be obvious, it is the “Eastern Sierra”), and that means they all get very early morning sun. I did not have any desire to get up at some God awful hour to drive out there for sunrise so my plan was to hike in the evening. I would arrive at about noon, eat lunch at the Whoa Nellie Deli (which is not called that anymore, sadly) and wait around for five hours until evening. I intended to go on a different hike first but when I arrived I discovered my planned route was all blocked off with fencing (private property). I could have gone to this particular waterfall via a longer route but then I would not have had time to do the second hike. I did not think it was worth it, so I just went to the second one instead: Chouinard Falls.
I have wanted to try this one for some time. I thought I could get down to it from above, from the highway. It is steep and dangerous. The rocks are all very loose. Once down the rocky section it becomes very brushy. The mosquitoes were out in force. Wait. Why are they out? Wasn’t it supposed to be windy today? Why isn’t it windy? What happened to that wind anyway! Well, it was pretty windy up on the highway but down in the brush, not so much. Dang those blood thirsty buggers! I made it over to the waterfall. The top tier is shown here, 46 ft. high. There is a second tier about the same height but I could not get down to it. It was just too cliffy. I thought I’d be able to do it, but it was a no go. I was shaking as I took photos and had to be extremely careful near the cliff edge. It was a tougher hike than I expected and it was over 9000 ft. in elevation. I was definitely feeling the effects of the high altitude and was out of breath and feeling wheezy. I was also expecting a lot more flow. According to the Mono Lake website it should be flowing at 140 cfs. This is certainly not 140 cfs. Apparently I misread the information. I thought the 140 was the intake to the powerhouse, but actually I think it was the outflow from the powerhouse (even though it says intake). Ugh. I still think it should have been better flow than it was.
I returned up the steep rocky slope to the car and drove home, arriving at about 11PM. I had to get up for church at 6AM since I was playing in the early service. Not much sleep for this old man but coffee helped. It was a nice day out in the Eastern Sierra before the apocalypse arrives next week.
