J & T's Epic John Muir Trail Hike: Saturday, August 31, 2013. Whitney Portal to Tuolumne Meadows to Sunrise Creek

'This I may say is the first time I have been to church in California'

John Muir after making first recorded ascent of Cathedral Peak.

And the Journey begins...

Alarm goes off at 5:10am. I am trying to be quiet but still hope the 'scared

of the dark' neighbors hear us. We decided to break down camp and just

do coffee. We weren't starving and by skipping breakfast, we would have an

extra breakfast for the trip in case of an emergency. The plan for today is to

shuttle up to Tuolumne Meadows and check in at the Ranger Station. We

have a permit to leave tomorrow from the Sunrise Trailhead and camp tonight

at the backpacker's camp. We had set up a private shuttle with Paul from

East Side Sierra Shuttle. He was great with all my emails and picked us up

from our campsite. We had set a 6:30am pick up--he was early

and didn't mind waiting while we finished brewing our coffee!!

I had to take a few pictures of the surroundings! A very weird looking pine cone that I very quickly learned was very common (and sticky, do not try to pick these up!) and our first wildlife sighting!!

Since we had skipped breakfast, we stopped by the Looney Bean Coffee shop...nice

play on words! We got coffee and muffins to start our trip. Jason's is on the left--a Oat Bran,

Raspberry & Almond muffin, Mine is on the right--The Sunrise Muffin--Coconut, Carrot Cake &

Pineapple. If you are ever in Mammoth Lakes, CA, I highly recommend the Sunrise Muffin!!

We really started to notice the smoke between Mammoth and Tuolumne Meadows. I tried not to really think about it because the closer we got, the worse it became. I was just praying that we would not have any problems...and trying not to freak out about it. Paul dropped us off at the Tuolumne Meadows Ranger Station. We either needed to pick up our permit to start on Sunday or look at the options to get on the trail today. They reserve 40% of the permits for walk-in permits. You have to wait until 11am for these. We were there around 10am and met BeeMan and Flip. They met while hiking the Appalachian Trail the year prior--how cool since that is a dream of mine!! They were planning on getting a walk in permit for the next day and going to a hotel. They camped the night before and the smoke really bothered them--their plan was to head south from Tuolumne Meadows...then come back and do Happy Isle-Tuolumne Meadow section at the end. That isn't an option for us because our car is at the end...and I NEED to get a picture at the starting sign. Call me crazy--side note here..my hubby was TOTALLY awesome during all of this. His attitude was to go with the flow...whatever I wanted. If I wanted a picture with the sign, we were going to get a picture with the sign. After all, it was my trip and I had spent the summer planning it.

We managed to get a walk in permit for Cathedral Lakes from

Tuolumne Meadows--so we had to get to Cathedral Lake

or further. The ranger was really understanding of our situation

& we got the best permit option considering I wanted to

hike back to Happy Isles. With our permit in hand...

we were off!! We officially are starting this crazy hike!

This is Lembert Dome. Depending on our time

situation when we come back thru here is a few

days, we might do a side hike to the summit.

The first John Muir Trail sign!!! I had to get a picture of it. Even though we

hadn't officially started and we weren't officially on it yet!

It's 11:45am on Saturday and we officially are starting our hike--3.5 miles to Cathedral Lakes, 7.8 miles to Sunrise High Sierra Camp, 21 miles to Yosemite Valley. It's Yosemite Valley or bust...but not today.

The view from the trail. Not too smokey but definitely smoke in the air. Luckily it is not bothering us. The trail is beautiful--very wide and even. I think this is Fairview Dome but I really have no idea! I think that is going to be a ongoing theme...beautiful views but not quite sure of what!

Our first wildlife sighting on the trail!!!

Glad it isn't a bear and we were even able to get a close up!!

When we started, Sunrise was 7.8 miles and Yosemite was 21 miles so we have made it

3.3 miles according to the Sunrise mileage but only 1.4 miles according to Yosemite.

If you are staying at the High Sierra Camps, you can opt to have your gear hauled in by mules.

Our first view of Unicorn Peak or Cathedral Peak--hard to tell with all the smoke. It obviously

was getting worse. Since we were doing an out & back..we could only hope that it would

clear up and we would be able to enjoy the great views on our way back through here.

At Upper Cathedral Lakes...it was 1:30 & we decided to stop for lunch.

More smokey views and mules...

We made it to Sunrise High Sierra Camps--there are six of these in Yosemite. It's like backpacking except you get a real bed! This section of the trail is one of the few where you need to worry about water. Thankfully they still had the water on for backpackers and we were able to fill up! You need reservations to use any of the facilities but a really nice gentleman working in the office did offer us Lemonade. We declined but it was really nice and thoughtful of him!

We stopped for a snack around 3:30pm right by Sunrise. I decided it was a perfect time to try my new

Sierra Trail Mix Clif bar since it was our first day. It was very yummy and I wish I had more

along the trail. We weren't sure how close we were gonna make it to Half Dome but our goal was

to get as close as we could. We had a permit to climb Half Dome and wanted to do it tomorrow.

The sky was very eerie looking. The smoke was bad but we weren't affected by it.

We met Ranger Katie on the trail. She had the unfortunate luck of unplanned time off

due to the Rim Fire so she decided to head out and hike the John Muir Trail!

Gotta admit, the Sun looked pretty neat!

Still very smokey...Half Dome was still 4.4 miles away and we wanted to get as close as we

could however it was after 5:30pm so we were basically looking for a place to camp for the night!

And we made it...found an awesome campsite right by a creek. We didn't know how close we were

to Half Dome but knew we were in the area where weekend backpackers would be. We heard

some people shortly after we got to camp and then a lot of hooting & hollering around 8pm.

Figured someone was having a good time! While we waited for dinner, Jason made good use

of the Bear Can! And the first sighting of the Clown Shoes. These are super light weight camp

shoes and light weight is the name of the game when you are carrying everything on your back.

Unfortunately, he could only find Red in his size...but they were super cheap because

of that...and they match our Jet Boil and Dromedary.

I did not want to spend a lot of time doing dishes on this trip so we opted for Ziploc Freezer Bag cooking--

I made cozies for the ziploc bags--think bubble wrap with a reflective liner on each side. We would boil water

in the Jet Boil, pour it into the Ziploc bag and throw it in the cozy for about 20 minutes. The

Jet Boil can only boil 2 cups at a time which is one dinner. I preferred more water so mine needed

longer soak time--so it worked out perfectly. I would do mine, then Jason would do his and we would

eat together. This plus the oatmeal in the morning really helped us get enough fluids. We were

worried about drinking enough water but had no issues! Tonight's dinner was BBQ Spaghetti...Yum..

.these dinners are really good...compliments to the chef!

And Camp on night 1...we have no idea how close we are to Cloud's Rest/Half Dome Junction. Sunday's

plan will depend on the weather and the smoke. We want to climb Half Dome so we are going to camp by the Junction and day hike to Happy Isles & hopefully hit Half Dome on the way there or the way back.

Lights out at 8:53pm.