The first full day in Yosemite

Kristin and I on the trail
see all photos »

After waking up at 5:30am, we jumped in the car and headed to Tuolumne Meadows to get our wilderness permits. We managed to get a permit after standing in line for 45 minutes. Either of our preferred routes were available so we settled for a route that we were both less familiar with. Kristin was a little dissapointed about the change because she had grown quite fond of our original choices ever since she read about them and their beauty in some books we has purchased.

The route we selected was going to be 32 miles and was going to start from the May Lake trail head to Ten Lakes and then back to May Lake again.

a mile from may lake
see all photos »

We got our packs ready, picked up a few things that we had forgotten (bowls, and an emergency shelter) to bring at the Tuolumne Meadows store, and had breakfast.

We were both ready and got in the car and headed down Tioga Road torwards the May Lake trail head and parking lot. After bear proofing our car, we put on our packs and started up the trail to May Lake. On our way we saw half dome and many other majestic views. After a couple of miles we arrived at May Lake where we stopped only briefly to filter water and top off our water supply. We continued  on the trail and hiked through a few beautiful meadows where we saw a doe and dozens of chipmonks. At first Kristin stopped at every cute little stream and meadow because she thought that they were scarce, but after we passed by a few she realized that there were may beautiful things that we would pass including many streams and meadows.

a wild mountain flower
see all photos »

As we were hiking, we were both joking about how I would occationally look up and see a bear, man, or monkey and then after a second realize that it was either a strange shaped tree, a stump, or a rock formation. Just minutes after teasing me about how I was seeing things, Kristin screamed. She said she thought she saw a man with an eagle head, or a really large eagle, but it was actually a tree... we both agreed that the tree resembled the fictional native american eagle-man (half man and half eagle), and were glad that at least we were goin insane together. :)

We continued to hike for miles up and over a rocky streached and down into another meadow. We looked at our map a few times to make sure were knew where we were and where we needed to go. We had some fun a few times while each of us looked at the map and the mountains and other landmarks around us and both had different ideas about whwere we were. It was fun to look at the map closely and finally come to an agreement about where we were and how much longer was had to hike until our next milestone. We continued to climb our of the meadow up and over the largest mountain on our hike so far. When we got up to the top we were pleasantly surprised to see a bunch of snow and a beautiful pond of snow melt. We were bothe tired at this point but knew we had more to go in order to go further in order to meet our daily goal. After a brief stop for some water and a power bar, we continued down the hill where we lost the trail, or should I say was confused about where the real trail was supposed to go. The normal trail was blocked by snow, so we worked our way down a 25 to 30 ft. steep drop that was completely rock. We saw where the trail looped around and jumped back on it. After a couple of stops for water and a run in with swarms of mesquitos we continued on the trail as it got less wooded and more rocky. We were happy to see a beautiful 8 point buck that didn't waste any time getting out of our way.

We both really started to feel tired and sick feeling with headaches and so fourth.  We both knew that we needed to keep going in order to arrive to out intended place of camp for the night in time to cook out food and ready our beds. We took a couple of advil, drank a lot of water, and ate a couple of cliff bars and an apple each. We were finally ready to decend the 800 feet or so to the bottom of the canyon to find a place to sleep. During the hardest moment, we both wondered of we were in over our head and thought about the option of going back. I could not quit and we both wanted to have a successful trip, so we started to put one foot in front of the other and eventually made it to the place we had hoped for. Looking back I don't know how its beauty compared to other other wonders we had seen during our trip, but just knowing that we were going to stop there for the night and get something to eat made it so much more beautiful to us.

After eating our dinner that cocsisted of Backpackrs pantry meals we hit the hay.  We didn't have any run ins with bears that night much to my disapointment and Kristin's desire. It was a good day complete with its ups and downs!