Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013. Lower Cathedral Lakes to Lyell Forks

“Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer.” --John Muir Today's Lesson: Triple Check the Map!  What a beautiful view to wake up to!  We were up around 8am and the plan was to hike to the post office at Tuolumne Meadows to pick up our re-supply.  We had left with 4 or 5 days worth of food and were going to be picking up another weeks worth.  Our next re-supply was at Muir Trail Ranch which is halfway thru the trail.  Depending on how long the re-supply takes will determine where we camp tonight! I think this is a good picture of Jason...while he thinks this is a good one of me.   Remind to keep the camera away from him.  Or maybe I just need to get ready faster... We leave camp around 9:40am...another late start.   Looks like it is gonna be another beautiful day!  Jason holding up a sign! Back where we started 3 days ago!!  True to my purist hike, we crossed the road and visited Parsons Memorial Lodge.  The Sierra Club built this Lodge in 1915 as a mountain meeting room.  It's absolutely beautiful!  Not a bad residence.    The sign states: Birth of a Park.  Around a campfire here in 1889 John Muir & publisher Robert Underwood Johnson discussed ways to protect this area.  Johnson printed two articles by Muir in his Century Magazine, proposing to the American public that this land be preserved for all time.  One year later Yosemite National Park was born.  In 1892, Muir founded the Sierra Club to encourage others to explore, protect & cherish their new park.  Soda Springs...carbonated mineral springs.  The bubbling water comes out of the ground pure and clean but there is a possibility that people or animals have contaminated the water.  Sounds like a typical CYA sign...but we had a lot of hiking days ahead of us and I didn't want to risk it! Meadows at Tuolumne Meadows!  Another awesome picture by Jason!  The pin on my hat  is the same picture as John Muir on the sign!  More wildlife sighting.  We were amazed at how the deer were so  use to people and you could walk right by them.   Our re-supply box.  Jason had no idea that I had packed some surprises for him!   Nutter Butters and  Nutty Bars!!  We had so much food!  This was one of the  few opportunities on the trail for 'real food'.  Unfortunately, we were eating such  good 'real food' that I made that we skipped eating at the grill here.   While we doing the re-supply...the weather changed.  The sky didn't look  promising so I got out the rain gear...not only in case it rained but also for warmth.   No idea how much further we are going to hike today.  The re-supply took  us about an hour and a half and it was now going on 3pm.  Not ideal.   Views along the Dana Fork...would love to come back here someday!  Not a bad idea to take a picture of the map along the way.  This made me realize  how much further we had to hike and it was getting late in the day.  Fun swimming holes...for a warmer day when we have more time!  Hiking along the Lyell Fork...very clear trail and finally  done with all the intersecting trails at Tuolumne Meadows!  They are doing some re-routing and restoration of the John Muir Trail along this section.  A ranger had warned us that we want to keep going straight even if there were logs across the trail.  There was a sign taped up also telling us to step over the log!  I just LOVE this sign...  The views were amazing.  We had to hike 4 miles into Lyell Canyon before we could camp.  It was funny, we walked by a guy hiking by himself who set up his tent ON the trail...ok maybe not directly on the trail but when he stepped out of his tent, he was on the trail.  He told us that we need to find a camp soon & that we were running out of daylight.   We were really dragging by now.  Our packs had a full 7 days worth of food and were very heavy.  We were almost out of water and just wanted to camp (see asterisk below).  The book talked about some sights at a junction around 8900 feet and more campsites at the start of the climb out of Lyell Canyon.  I swear the book said there was a bridge so I just kept looking for a bridge.  But we started climbing...and climbing...with hardly any water, heavy packs and just tired bodies.  It was around 9500 feet that we realized we had missed the base of the climb and our only choice was to go another 500 feet.  We finally saw this very welcome sight...  It was still light out...Jason hunted out an AWESOME campsite while I was filtering water.  It was up on ledge and while there were people ALL around this area, we were in a very private camp.  After the long day of hiking...we were going to sleep good! And make a mental note to put campsite coordinates into the GPS from here on out!  There was some good news though...we were that much closer to Donohue Pass! Lights out at 9:45pm.  Miles Hiked Today:  16.5   Total Miles Hiked:  57.9     Total JMT Miles Hiked: 34.3 Elevation: 9300 down to 8500 back up to 10,000 Today was the only 'flat section' of the trail.   Too bad our packs were too heavy to enjoy it!