Category: Walking

Day 80: June 21st
Mile 983.3 to Mile 1004.5

Tradition has it that June 21st is naked hiking day. Deb had been talking about it for weeks now. I’m not sure if she was planning on participating or just excited about the idea of the buff mostly male hikers around us. Unfortunately, the mosquitos have been especially vicious in this section of the Pacific Crest Trail and no one was seen participating in the event.

We have other reasons to celebrate today: we successfully hiked the often difficult Yosemite Wilderness, and we hit a major milestone. Shortly after climbing a very gentle Dorothy Lake pass, we exited Yosemite Wilderness and entered Hoover Wilderness where less than 2 miles later we reached 1,000 hiking miles! For some hikers this might be enough, but we pushed onward. We have many, many more miles to go…

We continue to be stoveless since the Jetboil broke yesterday. Starbucks Via coffee is not so good made with cold water. Mountain House freeze dried meals were not that bad if you let them rehydrate in cold water for an hour. We will be picking up supplies at northern Kennedy Meadow tomorrow. We may have to swap out some of the food we sent ourselves for no-cook food. When we get to South Lake Tahoe in about five days we will be able to replace our stove and cook once again.

Mileage: 21.2

Day 79: June 20
Mile 965.8 to Mile 983.3

Today we had a minor disaster. Our Jetboil stove broke. The threads on the stove that are suppose to hold the gas canister are stripped. It even made a pretty impressive fireball when the canister popped off while we were cooking. Thankfully nothing caught fire. Unfortunately, we have breakfast and dinners left that work better with hot, rather than cold, water but we have worked out a meal strategy for the next 2 days.

Today’s hiking was mostly a repeat of yesterday’s: steep up and downs with fantastic views. There are a surprising amount of rock/stone staircases in this section – a little hard on the knees and feet, but very impressive trail building work.

Is tomorrow naked hiking day – Deb wants to know? Traditionally it’s the first day of summer, but we have lost track of the calendar out here on the trail.

Mileage: 17.4 miles

Day 77: June 18th

Mile 933.6 (Lyell Fork) to Glen Aulin

It was a frosty morning as the entire meadow was covered in frost. Very pretty, but Deb doesn’t enjoy cold mornings very much.

We made it the nine miles to the Tuolumne Meadows store where we discovered that only one of our resupply boxes had arrived. The other was down in Yosemite Valley. Fortunately the Yosemite Valley post office had noticed about 15 boxes that were going to Tuolumne and sent them by car that morning so we had our second box by 1 pm.

According to the Tuolumne Post office the address is:

(Hiker Name)

General Delivery

c/o Tuolumne Meadows

Yosemite, CA 95389

But this address won’t work with USPS.com and the web site has a different address for Tuolumne Meadows that sometimes gets lost. Anyway both our packages arrived and we were soon back on the trail.

Wow, the next section to Glen Aulin could not be more spectacular. The Tuolumne river is filled with different shades of green – it looked like an artist had drizzled green paint in the river but each shade flowed separately and did not mix with the other shades. It is hard to imagine a photograph capturing the images we enjoyed. Day hikers saw us stopping often to admire the views and told us to keep walking because it gets better and better. And it did. We can’t wait for tomorrow!

Mileage: 14.8 miles

Day 78: June 19th
Glen Aulin to Mile 965.8

Today surprised us. We knew we were in for some climbing from studying the elevation profiles, but we were not expecting such steep grades. Deb is guessing that this is one of the older (or first) trails built in Yosemite – not much hiker traffic today as yesterday. But we still felt very privileged to experience this trail today and enjoyed the green meadows high on the mountain crests, and the rivers low in the valleys.

We ate our dinner in Matterhorn canyon before ending our day with an additional climb halfway up the mountain. Deer are near our campsite so we hope our hiking pole handles are safe (they seek salt on the handles.)

Mileage: 17.4

Day 76: June 17th
Mile 916 (above Agnew Meadow) to Mile 933.6 (Lyell Fork)

The Pacific Crest Trail and the John Muir Trail diverge and take separate paths to Thousand Island Lakes and we naturally took the PCT. This path gently climbs and traverses a green valley with small waterfalls and water cascades crossing the trail many times during a given mile. The mountain range across the valley from our path was a beautiful vista of snowy peaks, sometimes capped by the clouds.

The day was very windy and we seemed to adjust our layers every half hour. In the afternoon hours we were climbing over Donahue Pass, the last Sierra pass in the park. The few snow patches were easy to cross. The roughest part of the day was the trail tread before and after the pass – we had to concentrate on our feet as we stepped up, on top, or over big stone steps. Deb won’t miss the big steps!

Tomorrow we pick up a resupply box at the Tuolumne post office, grab a burger (of course), and hike a few more miles away from Tuolumne to camp.

Photo: Thousand Island Lake

Mileage: 17.6 miles

Day 75: June 16th
Red’s Meadow to Mile 916 (above Agnew Meadow)

We had a few chores to finish up in Mammoth Lakes, so we got a late start on the Pacific Crest Trail this morning.

We stopped by the post office shortly after it opened and mailed back Deb’s bear canister and our remaining snow gear. Deb will share Lon’s bear canister until they are no longer required at Sonora Pass and then we will ship that one home too.

We then took a free shuttle bus up to the ski resort/bike park to catch another shuttle ($7 round trip) to Red’s Meadow.

Felt good to be back on the PCT. Lon replaced the Superfeet insoles in his shoes and the new replacements are very comfortable. He also had the tips of his trekking poles replaced by the outfitter in Mammoth.

The PCT diverts from the John Muir Trail today and we were walking new Sierra miles for Deb, along the San Joaquin river – turned out to be a very green and beautiful section. Two passes tomorrow, Island and Donohue, although Lon is calling Island a “pino” (pass in name only.)

It was a windy day and cool temperatures are forecast tonight.

Photo: The Zpacks tent pitched in our sheltered campsite tonight.

Mileage: 9.2 miles