As planned we woke up today early and quickly broke camp, leaving well before the boyscouts had a chance to get going. Thats how thru-hikers do it. We had a real easy day planned, hiking down the length of Lyell Valley to Tuolumne Meadows - a 10 mile trip. From there we would assess our situation and if we have time, hoped to continue along the JMT to finish at Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley. I decided I didn't need much food for this morning as there was a grill at Tuolumne, so that also helped with the fast start this morning. Plus, I lost my spoon a few days ago, so eating has been a bit more of a challenge without that utensil. For the messy stuff I've been forced to borrow a broken spoon from Jeannie. That McFlurry spoon lasted about 550 miles from Cajon Pass, and I'm absolutely sold on using them in the future as a lightweight and durable alternative to expensive titanium spoons.
The miles went quickly past as we followed the downward slope of the valley and river into Tuolumne Meadows. Jeannie and I took a bet about how many times we would be asked about the conditions on Donohue Pass. She guessed four, and I guessed six. There were two early on, and I felt confident that as we got closer to the trailhead the number of questions would increase. Sadly, I was wrong as the number of day hikers increased and the majority of JMT hikers had already passed in the early morning. As we made it further down it became evident that Jeannie had been dead on with her guess of four, and I had little or no chance of picking up two more, even if I did try my hardest to get random people to ask about the pass. Walking along we wished we had a small raft to glide down the water, which slid silently past us, easily outrunning our respectable 3 mph pace. The only issue with a raft would be carrying it when not on water, but man it would've been awesome today... In the last mile from the trailhead we saw a number of families out hiking together, including some kids that looked totally dejected at the idea of hiking through the woods. I bet I did that occasionally, but I did feel sorry for them that they already weren't enjoying themselves only a mile or two in. It would be a long day for them I bet. At the bottom we followed the trail, and then ended up with a mile long trek over to the store. We were both hungry and impatient, so that walk seemed to take forever. Jeannie hadn't seen the maps, so every building we passed first raised and then dashed her hopes. Finally we came to the store where I picked up a burger and ice cream, along with my pair of resupply packages. These contained the seven days of food required to get me to Echo Lake, but I would instead be using part of it for the hike down to Yosemite Valley and the rest for Washington. There was no way this all could fit in the bear canister, so I did my best to cram in the smelly stuff and then everything else went into a different stuff sack which would hopefully not be raided by animals...
At the store I ran into Avocado, who I almost didn't recognize, and then Muumuu and another friend of theirs. We chatted and caught up - turns out they are getting off trail to go biking instead, so this was their last stop. They'd hiked a bit with Joe and Fool, who were both now on their way down to Yosemite Valley and Half Dome, so maybe we would see them on our trip if we hurried. I was in no hurry though, as it felt great to sit down and relax for a little bit. Finally after about 2 hours it was time to get going again, and Jeannie and I decided to pick up a little celebratory treat for this evening since it was her last night. The store happened to sell wine in bags, so we picked up a half liter of Sangria and set off on our way, bidding goodbye to our old friends one last time. The interesting part about this section is that since it is off the PCT we didn't have maps that covered it. As a result we weren't quite sure how far it would be, though we had heard conflicting reports that it was anywhere from 18 to 28 miles. I think we settled on 24 and figured it would be easy to do it by the 5:00 bus back up to Tuolumne tomorrow. The JMT around the store was pretty well signed, so we had no worries about staying on the right trail as we went forward. Additionally, we knew that we would drop a net 4,000 feet of elevation, so the terrain couldn't be that terrible, right? Early on we did a few short climbs followed by reasonable descents, all well marked with mileages to locations ahead. We settled on stopping at Cathedral Meadows / Lake after a six mile haul. I was aching more than usual due to the extra food load, and plus we weren't too worried about the overall mileage. When we got to the meadow we stopped and made dinner, and throughout the whole meal we were swarmed by mosquitos. That made up our mind to camp away from the meadow, so we walked 0.2 miles up before setting up under some scraggly pines. Hopefully they would provide enough cover to prevent the worst of the potential condensation. I was a bit concerned about the extra food outside my bear canister, but since we were camped away from where we cooked hopefully the lack of smells at our site would prevent a bear or other critters from becoming interested in my goodies.
Miles Today: 10 (+6 JMT)
Trip Mileage: 942
Photo: Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River
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