1 August 2020 JMT Cloud’s Rest Trail to Happy Isles (8.9 miles, +900/-3,200 feet) Today was our triumphant finish! Bishop to Yosemite Valley, nearly 150 miles in two weeks. But it was a very strange ending. This is obviously some of the most dramatic scenery on Earth, but it was sometimes hard to appreciate with…
Category: Yosemite
Day 13: DA BEARS!
31 July 2020 JMT Lower Cathedral Lake to Clouds Rest Trail (11.7 miles, +1,200/-3,300 feet). We originally planned to camp below Clouds Rest today, but I was worried about trying to do 6,000 feet of descent to the valley floor on our last day. So we decided to stick to the JMT and split the…
Day 12: Lower Cathedral Lake
30 July 2020 JMT from Ireland Lake Trail to Lower Cathedral Lake (11.2 miles, +1,400/-1,000 feet). Today was sad because we said goodbye to Flower Power who headed back home from Tuolumne. But it was also happy because we camped at Lower Cathedral Lake, one of my favorite of the trip! We broke camp in…
Day 11: Over Donahue Pass to Lyell Canyon
29 July 2020 JMT from Waugh Lake Trail to Ireland Lake Trail (10.4 miles, +1,800/-2,500 feet). We slept really well last night to the tune of Rush Creek, undisturbed by human visitors. We enjoyed breakfast and a sunrise and were on our way. We encountered the large group that camped ahead of us right away…
Isberg Pass
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…
Lyell Fork
Lake 10217 to Lake 11311 and back then downstream to Isberg Pass Trail (10 miles, +2,300/-2,700 feet). Today we started with a day hike to explore the upper Lyell Fork. I’ve mapped it on caltopo, along with our trip yesterday through Bench Canyon: For the most part route finding was straightforward, except the path from…
Bench Canyon
Hemlock Crossing to Lyell Fork of the Merced (10 miles, +4400/-1800 feet). I was hoping a cold morning would reduce the bug pressure, but we didn’t really have one. The temperatures only dropped into the high 50s so the little bloodsuckers were more than happy to greet us as we exited our tents. We had…
Buena Vista Crest
Lower Merced Lake to Buena Vista Crest to Mono Meadows Trailhead (18 miles, +3,100/-4,600 feet). I was very excited to get up and get started this morning. Set aside the fact that it was 25 degrees and our water had frozen and I was happy to be moving. What I was really looking forward to…
Lower Merced Pass Lake
Mono Meadows Trail to Lower Merced Pass Lake (13 miles, +3,000/-1,400 feet). It’s been quite a while since Orion and I did a hike together, so I was really looking forward to our trip to Yosemite. Although the forecast called for lows in the 20s, the weather was bizarrely still quite seasonal, with no snow…
The JimmyJam Hiking Club 