Saturday, September 3, 2016 - No Fish

Both Craig and I were awake at 5:45. The morning sunrise over the jagged Minarets promised to be spectacular. The nice thing was, we didn't need to even get out of our bags to see it. Craig got his stoves going for breakfast while I ate granola and milk as the sky brightened, then burst into color behind the Minarets. We were on our way by a few minutes after 6:30 am. 

We approached Martin's tent. He was awake and staring out the side door at the sunrise as we approached. He commented on our early departure. We explained it is what we do and we would see him later in the day when he passed us. 

We made Blue Lake Pass by 7:25 am, amazed to see so many clouds in the sky this early in the morning. As we crossed over the pass, we left the Ansel Adams Wilderness and entered Yosemite National Park. A slight wind and cool temperatures inspired us to begin descending the north side of the pass. Once off the steep head wall, we began a  two mile walk across a high mountain plateau dotted with trees, awash with wildflower a gone to seed at this late date, boulders, heathers and granitic slabs. At the far edge of this broad flat expanse was the Isberg Pass trail. Once we picked it up, we would be on trail the next 18 miles to Tuolumne Meadows. 

When we reached the far edge the ground began to drop off. The trail was below us on the side of the hill. We checked the map and GPS and continued down the hill, scanning for the trail. We avoided rocky areas and stuck to sandy soils. We might miss the trail in the rocky areas. We dropped below the elevation the trail was at. This began to worry us a bit. Did we miss the trail?  Not possible!  We contemplated retracing our steps to look for it,but realized that was not rational. We would have seen it had we crossed it. We continued down hill and in a few minutes came upon it. As we had descended I had kept us traversing to the right, putting us on the brink of the drop into the Lyell Fork of the Merced River. When we hit the trail, we turned right onto it and immediately began descending the 900' down to the river. 

There are no lakes on this section of the route.  This gave us no excuses to stop, so we just motored along the trail, surprised Martin had not caught us yet.  From past experience hiking in this area of the park I had found anytime you can see Half Dome, you will have cell service. There are no cell towers on the top of Half Dome, so it doesn't really make sense, but most of the time it is true. After about eight miles the trail drops down to Lewis Creek. Just as it drops over the brink to begin its descent, Half Dome is visible. I switched my phone off airplane mode and sure enough, cell service. I called Sally, but the signal was so weak that I could hear her but she could not hear me. I sent a few texts instead. 

Craig and I stopped for lunch in this area to take advantage of the service, such as it is. As we ate, the signal drifted in and out. We were able to make a few contacts, read some texts and glance at some emails. 

After lunch we continued down to Lewis Creek then up the trail toward Vogelsang Pass. After a few miles we agreed it was time to stop and set up camp. We found a wonderful campsite and were soon laying around recouperating and relaxing, although the temperatures were cold and a breeze made it seem colder still. There were clouds in the sky and we debated as to whether to set up the tarp. We decided to sleep out, as it appeared the clouds we thinning. We made about 12 miles this day. Amazing what can happen when you don't stop at every lake to fish!