Switchbacks above Lyell Fork to Cora Lakes
(15 miles, +1,900/-3,100 feet).

We awoke to beautiful light on the Clark Range in the distance.

And below we could hear the Lyell Fork rushing down to the Merced over steep, vast, and impossibly smooth granite slabs.

Soon we packed up and headed into the woods. Today we would be on trail the whole way, a nice respite after 20 miles of cross country. The bugs were not as bad this morning except near water and in meadows.

MixMaster was not feeling great today, so he pressed ahead when ChiaGlyph and I took breaks to keep his momentum.

There’s a wide open plain below Isberg pass that is really pretty.

We hit the split in the trail for Post Peak Pass and headed up towards Isberg Pass.

We took a nice lunch at the pass. We remarked that we had just spent two full days in Yosemite in August and we had not seen A SINGLE OTHER PERSON. Wow!

As we made our way down towards Isberg Lakes, we did, in fact, pass one couple who were heading into Yosemite near Post Peak Pass. It was nice chatting with them.

We took a nice break at Upper Isberg Lake

Afterwards, we continued our descent.

We didn’t hit bad mosquitoes again until Knoblock Meadow.

I was worried about camping at Cora Lakes and the likely mosquito-geddon that awaited, but just before we got down there we hit a ridge southwest of Detachment Meadow that had an open, breezy, and very dry flat spot above the lakes. It was our least buggy camp site of the whole trip, and badly needed for my own personal sanity.

There was no water there, but we made a special trip down to Cora Lakes to fill up and then headed back up to our dry camp.