I slept really well last night. So well in fact that Share Bear had to wake me at 6:20 AM. I saw the time and jumped up and got my stuff together. I was rushing to get ready to hike because we have a long today. We were ready to hike just after 7:30 AM.

Originally we were going to do this 70 mile section in 5 full days. We decided 2 days ago that we will complete it in 3.5 days, so we have to average 20 miles per day. Today we plan on hiking 21.25 miles. Plus, we are meeting Tim and Brad at the 9.5 mile point which will make our lunch break a little longer.

Looking at today's maps, we have three pretty good hills to climb before lunch and three to climb after lunch. Pretty much today is going to be a roller coaster of a hike.

The first climb started immediately.

Just after 1.5 miles we came to a trail junction. The sign looked very new.

We had this view for much of the first climb this morning:

When we got to the top of the second hill there was cell phone reception, except for my AT&T. As hikers arrived they were all quite excited to try their phones out:

We took a short break up there, but was anxious to continue hiking because Tim and Brad are meeting us 5.5 miles ahead.

The trail went down a while and we had a view of Noble Lake:

Today's hike was so diverse. We saw so many different things. There were really cool rock formations including this black one:

When we were within 1 mile of Highway 4 where Tim and Brad was meeting us, Tim made an appearance. He's really getting into hiking in and meeting us on the trail. We hike the mile back with him and enjoyed lunch with ice cold Gatorade he brought for us. As we were eating lunch, Boston Scott showed up and grabbed a beer out of the cooler to drink with his almond butter and jelly pita sandwich.

We didn't want to leave, but we still had over 12 miles to go for the day, so at 1:30 PM we said goodbye to Tim, Brad, and Scott. We might see Tim at a road crossing tomorrow, if not, we will see him in Lake Tahoe in 2 days.

Just after lunch we crossed into Molelumne Wilderness:

Here is another cool rock we saw today:

And yet another beautiful view of a lake. This one is Kinney Lake.

This afternoon the trail opened up and went through a field of green:

Then the terrain became rocky again with cool black rocks:

After the rocks cleared up the trail started looking more like the desert again. We know that we will soon be entering the deserts of Northern California, but we are not quite ready.

I needed to stop to filter some water so we decided to take another break. It was now 4:30 PM and we had 5.5 miles to go till our campsite. We figured we would get there by 7:30 PM which wouldn't be too bad.

From our break point the trail goes up for the next mile, then down for 0.5 miles, then back up for one more mile. After this 2.5 miles it should be nice hiking for the rest of the day.

We hiked strong and got through the 2.5 miles in just over an hour. Now we only had 3 miles to go. Wow were those 3 miles long and hard and seemingly never ending. We looked ahead and thought we knew where the trail was taking us and then it would go in a totally different direction.  I got a second wind for a while, but with 1 mile to go I was pretty much done. This is when I saw this snake blocking the trail:

Finally, a bit earlier than the predicted 7:30 PM, we arrived at our campsite. There were already 2 tents pitched, but we made ourselves at home and found places to pitch our tents. As we were setting up the tents, one of the guys arrived from collecting water. He just retired as the head of the civil engineering department at the Air Force Academy. We had a nice conversation about our Air Force  careers before the mosquitoes drove him into his tent.

I finished setting up my tent and cooked dinner which I had to eat in my tent to avoid the mosquitoes as well.

Tomorrow we plan on hiking just under 22 miles, so I better get some sleep, especially since these guys at our site said they were going to wake at 5:30 AM. Until tomorrow...

It was a cold night making it hard to get a really good night sleep and then Cloak of Chillness' alarm went off at 5:00 AM and then again at 5:15 AM and I couldn't get back to sleep. Right at 6:00 AM I started packing up my stuff. When I left the tent there was permafrost on the ground and was still pretty chilly. By the time I was packed up and eating breakfast, Cloak and Papa Squat were packed, fed, and ready to go. Before they left we got our morning photo with them. Share Bear and I were ready to leave about 10 minutes later at 7:30 AM.

Right from the start, the trail headed down for 2,350 feet over 5.5 miles. As usual, our morning views were spectacular.

Within 15 minutes we crossed into Carson Iceberg Wilderness.  We didn't like the mention of iceberg very much.

Today's hike was really nice. It dos start with a long, hard hill going down, but after that the trail was like a roller coaster with ups and downs making it somewhat enjoyable. Plus, the scenery was amazing and the wildflowers are in full bloom making the hike even more beautiful.

When I posted my 1,000 mile picture on Facebook, Paul Court said that I should smell a ponderosa pine because it smells like vanilla. Well, here I go:

It does smell good. Like caramel or butterscotch or vanilla.

When I walk through a scene like this, I sometimes can't believe I'm doing this.

The scenery today was so diverse. Every corner we came around there was something different to see.

We passed by Boston Scott and told him that we planned on stopping for lunch around 1:00 PM and that we hoped to see him there. We did stop right around 1:00 PM and Scott did show up just after we finished eating. It was nice to talk to him for probably the last time since I assume he won't care up with us again.

This PCT sign was at the Paradise Valley, Golden Canyon trail junction:

As the hike went on the diversity continued.

We had an awesome hike of 18.5 miles when we arrived at our planned campsite just after 6:00 PM. We both felt we could hike a bit further, but decided to call it a day. We set up camp and prepared and ate dinner with pesky mosquitos flying all around us. We were forced into our tents by said mosquitos by 7:30 PM. Quite early, but after not sleeping well last night, we can both use an early night.

Tomorrow we meet Tim and Brad at Highway 4, just over 9 miles from here. The timing should be perfect to have lunch with them. It's great to have that to look forward to tomorrow.

I woke up in the hotel bed in the middle of the night with sore feet. I had to sit up and massage them a bit before going back to sleep. I guess that's what 20+ miles feels like 7 hours later. I was able to fall back asleep and slept in till 7:30 AM when I finally awoke.

It is definitely nice waking up in a hotel room after being on the trail for 6 days. Today we will take our time in town and then hit the trail late afternoon. First we need to go out for a good breakfast and then do laundry.

At the laundromat we met Stonewall, another thru-hiker. We mentioned that we were headed back to the trail later this afternoon if he needs a ride. He very excitingly said yes, so we told him to meet us at our hotel at 3:30 PM.

After laundry was done we went back to the hotel room to relax for a bit. The relaxing was over in about 10 minutes when I realized I should repack my bag first and then relax. I then relaxed for 10 minutes and determined that we should eat lunch before heading back to the trail. So much for relaxing.

We walked down the street for sandwiches and returned to the hotel right at 3:30. Stonewall and Boston Scott was there already for the ride back to the trail. We quickly are our sandwiches and loaded into the 4Runner for the 40 minute drive back to Sonora Pass.

Right at 5:00 PM we were ready to hike.

Scott and Stonewall took off immediately. Tim decided to hike in with us a little bit.

Right when we got back on the trail there was a PCT sign:

The hike immediately started climbing and didn't give in. Tim made it about 1 mile before calling it quits. He said that he much preferred hiking in to meet us because there is something to look forward to...awwwww. We said goodbye to Tim. We will see him in 2 days when we meets us at Highway 8 to resupply us.

After Tim turned back we continued our climb.

When we started hiking today we thought we might make it to a campsite 7.5 miles from the start...pretty ambitious. Just before 7:00 PM we were crossing a snowfield and noticed a campsite. We had only come 3.59 miles, but we decided to call it a night.

We set up camp and were about to prepare dinner when Poppa Squat from Santa Cruz showed up. We told him there was room for him, so he decided to stop. A little later, his buddy Cloak of Chillness, from Nashville, Tennessee, but now living in Portland, Oregon stopped as well. We all had dinner together and quickly got in our tents since it was windy and pretty cold. Share Bears thermometer read 45 degrees at 8:00 PM...Brrrr. Before calling it a night we caught a terrific sunset from our campsite:

What an incredibly epic day!  It's day 90 on the trail, we hit the 1,000 mile marker, and we hiked 21 miles in one day...AMAZING!

I woke at 6:20 AM and was surprised Share Bear didn't wake me earlier. I quickly packed up my stuff and exited the tent and noticed Share Bear was still in her's. She finally exited and said it was too cold and windy at 6:00 AM to get up, so she slept in...I'm all for that.

Even with the sleeping in, we still managed to start hiking just after 8:00 AM. Salmon joined us for our morning picture:

At this point we don't know how far we will hike. We will either go 14 miles or 20.52...a decision will be made at lunch.  Either way we better get going.

Just 10 minutes after our hike started we exited Yosemite National Park and entered Hoover Wilderness.  This is the point that we don't need to carry our bear canisters anymore. I was thinking that when we got here we would see a pile of canisters from people that was so sick of carrying them that they would just dump them here. I was quite tempted, but that would be "leaving a trace" so I guess I better carry it out to Sonora Pass like everyone else.

Onward we hiked on this beautiful PCT.

We hiked on and Share Bear suddenly exclaimed, "Here we are!"  We knew that we were getting close, but the thought left my mind as my mind wandered on to other things. I looked down and we were there. A tear almost came to my eyes. It is hard to believe that I have hiked 1,000 miles, but here we were.

We stood around and contemplated the whole 1,000 mile thing and then realized we still have 1,670 miles left to go, so we better get hiking.

6 miles into the hike we came across this cool bridge crossing a unnamed creek:

We stopped for lunch at the 9.5 mile point and discussed whether or not we should try for Sonora Pass. 

Sonora Pass is still 11 miles from here and it was now 2:00 PM. After discussing we still didn't make up our mind. We decided to make it at least to a campsite 7 miles short and decide from there. So, we continued on.

After lunch we had a huge climb. In the next 3 miles we have 1,535 feet to climb so up we went.

We came to the end of a really steep switchback and came to a decision. The actual trail switchbacked to the left, but there was a steeper trail that went right to where we needed to go. We decided to go for the steeper more direct route. This picture shows the switchback behind Share Bear:

This alternate route was STEEP.  When we were almost to the intersection of the actual trail there was a snowfield to cross. We have crossed many of these, but this one was legitimate and we both left our microspikes with Tim, so we had to cross with just our running shoes.  Luckily we both made it across safely, but it was silly for us to take  this alternate route with this unnecessary snow crossing, but we got here to the point faster.

We made it to the top of the climb and was greeted by a sign pointing toward Sonora Pass, our possible goal for the day.

At this point the trail became epic. A ridge walk looking out on incredible scenery in all directions. The next 8 miles into Sonora Pass is supposed to be like this.

As we hiked Share Bear noticed a Jabba the Hut rock:

We came to the last possible campsite 5 miles out from Sonora Pass. It was chilly and very windy. We knew if we stayed here it would be miserable, so we finally decided to continue on to Sonora Pass for the night. At 5:00 we were on a ridge and was able to get cell service to call Tim and let him know we were going to make it there tonight instead of tomorrow. He couldn't believe that we were going to hike over 20 miles today, but I told him we felt good and could do it. Him and Brad will be at the road at 7:00 PM...cool.

Now we just have to hike the 5 more miles. At this point we have come over 15 which is usually the end of the day for us. We hiked on and came to more snowfields we had to cross. This has got to be the most snow crossing we have had to do...blah.

We were finally making our way down and was feeling pretty good. Then, when we were about 2.25 miles from Sonora Pass, we came across more snow crossing. What the heck, and some of these were hard to cross and some we went around and that was really hard as well.

About 1 mile from the end Tim made an appearance. It's always nice when he hikes in to meet us. Unlike us, he was excited by the snowfields.

At 7:30 PM we made it to Sonora Pass, 20.5 miles in one day, both of our new distance record.

Oh, while hiking today we met Scott from Boston that hiked the JMT last year and decided to continue on from that point this year. We offered him a ride to town tonight, but he said he wasn't planning on leaving the trail. We said our good lucks and continued past him. Right when we got down, he was close behind out of breathe. He ran to catch us to take that ride after all.

We want to Bridgeport, ate burgers for dinner and went to the hotel room for showers and sleeping in a bed after an incredibly epic day on the Pacific Crest Trail. 

What a great campsite. There was two streams and a waterfall close by creating some wonderful sleeping noise. I woke at 6:01 AM.  It's amazing how well my internal clock works.

I ate breakfast, filtered some water, as packed up my stuff. We were ready to hike just before 7:30 AM.

We have a big day ahead of us. We plan on hiking 18.24 miles which would be the most I have hiked on one day so far. We will try to get as far as we can by lunch and reevaluate at that time if we can make it.

The day started out with us hiking through a pine forest. With some enormous trees.

Right away we saw a nice PCT sign. It seems that we will be seeing more of these again since we are not on the JMT anymore. This one states that Wilma Lake is 7.8 miles away...this is where we plan on stopping for lunch.

But first, before lunch, we must complete two ups and downs, both pretty steep. Since the climbs were in the morning it wasn't too bad. Our legs were well rested and we had the needed energy. Plus, we had some awesome mountains to look at.

We had a couple of rivers to cross. This one had an interesting series of interconnected logs:

The wildflowers are out in full bloom now:

I finally got a photograph of a grouse:

Share Bear and I did well. We climbed up 2,218 feet and hiked down 2,560 feet and completed 8.68 miles by 12:30 PM when we stopped for lunch at Wilma Lake. The mosquitoes were awful, but we managed to find a windy spot that kept them away.

Since we did so well this morning, we decided we could make it 9.5 miles more to Dorothy Lake for the night. At this point the terrain levels out so it shouldn't be too hard.  

After lunch we got back on the trail and almost twisted my ankle, but fell to save it. I was completely fine, not even a scratch --- fall number 1.

Soon after we came to a river that we had to ford. The rocks under the water looked smooth, so I decided to go barefoot. I entered the water where there was sand, but it got deep real quick. When I tried to back up, I fell and was sitting in the river. I was able to stand up and make my way to the other side --- fall number 2.

This is the river I fell in. Notice how calm it is.

Oh...we were hiking along and saw this license plate embedded in a tree pretty far up...huh?!?

The trail at this point was traversing granite rocks to get us to the canyon beside that rock formation out there.

Speaking of granite rock...I was hiking along and almost twisted my ankle on a rock, but fell and saved it. Unfortunately, this time I skinned my leg and knee pretty good --- fall number 3.

Oh yeah, When we finally got to the canyon, it was so beautiful. We hiked the last 6 miles of the day along rivers and through meadows with rock formations all around.

After a short break in the meadow we continued on to Dorothy Lake where we plan on spending the night.  At this point we had about 4 miles to go. We were pretty anxious to get there so we hiked on with little breaks. At 6:30 PM we finally got a view of the lake:

As we approached the lake we saw a sign for a camping area for pack animals. I didn't like the look of it even though Share Bear thought we should stop there. Onward we went and didn't see any places to camp. Finally, we saw a site that already had a tent pitched. I approached the tent and a head popped up. I told her our situation and that we would like to share the site with her. She said it was no problem.

Her name was Salmon from Minneapolis and is spending about 2 weeks hiking the trail to Yosemite where she is going to meet some friends.

We pitched our tents then cooked and ate dinner. It was chilly and windy, but it was hard to complain since the wind kept the mosquitos away.

We are now 22 miles from Sonora Pass where we are going to meet Tim and Brad. During dinner we had the crazy idea that we might be able to hike it all tomorrow. In case this crazy idea becomes reality, I better get to sleep.

I slept pretty well last night. It started out fairly warm and then got colder throughout the night, but not too cold. I woke at 5:40 AM and was excited that I had 20 more minutes to sleep, and the next thing I knew, it was 6:20 AM. Oops. I quickly got my stuff together, dug a cat hole, filtered a couple of liters of water, and ate breakfast. Throughout all of this, Pinot, Pirate, and Andy all left for their hikes. We were ready to go at 7:40 AM.

Today's hike is going to be a bit challenging. We have 2 passes to cross which means lots of climbing, and in between the passes we will have lots of downhills. In our planned 15 miles we will go up 3,923 feet and down 4,068 feet.  One plus is that the first pass is right away, so we get to climb with fresh legs. However, the second pass is at the end of the day...as usual.

First, let's climb Benson Pass, a 1,700 foot climb in 3.27 miles. Since we hit this first thing in the morning, we were feeling pretty good. How could we not with this scenery around us?

One hour into hiking, we hit this amazing meadow and a view of the pass somewhere out there:

We climbed for almost 2 hours and arrived at the top of Benson Pass at 9:20 AM. I think this is the earliest we have been on top of a pass. After we arrived, Pinot and Pirate was right behind.

Our stay at the top was very short-lived due to the swarm of mosquitos up there. We pretty much took out pictures and headed down immediately. The views as we climbed down were spectacular.

One hour after leaving Benson Pass we arrived at Smedberg Lake...how gorgeous.

We didn't stop at the lake for a break, instead we hiked on. We wanted to get to our lunch spot early enough so we could take a nice break there before climbing the next pass. So, we hiked on for 2 more hours before stopping for lunch at 12:30 PM.

On the way, the trail didn't disappoint:

Lunch was a much needed stop. While there, 7 others arrived with the same idea of stopping there for lunch. We were joined by Bigfoot, Doc, Aviator, Karal, Pinot, Pirate, and ??.  It was nice, but we wound up breaking for almost 2 hours...too long!  Just before 2:30 PM, we said goodbye to our fellow hikers and headed out for Seavey Pass, a 1,600 foot climb in 3 miles.

As we climbed, we came across Larry sitting on the side of the trail taking a break. Larry is 71 and thought he would try hiking from Tuolumne Meadows to just Carson Pass, a 135 mile stretch of the PCT, in 14 days. Sounds pretty doable...he just has to average about 10 miles a day. The problem is that he decided to try to do it without resupplying, so he started out carrying 14 days worth of food!  That must be at least 35 pounds of just food...on the back of a 71-year-old. Needless to say, he was exhausted climbing up Seavey Pass. We wished him luck and continued upward trying to figure out, as usual, where the pass was.

I looked up and this seemed to be the pass we were headed for:

We got to the top and there was another top, then we climbed some more and there was another top. This is the craziest pass we have done. We looked up and saw what we hoped was the top, when we got there it wasn't the top, but, surprise...this amazing alpine lake was there:

OK...at the top of this rocky staircase has to the the top of Seavey Pass:

We didn't know if it was the top, but we took our celebratory top of pass picture just in case.

Was it the top or not?  We have no idea. The trail did go down from there, but then it went up. Since we took the picture we are going to call it Seavey Pass!

On the way down we caught a glimpse of another alpine lake down below:

At this point we were tired. According to our maps and guides, the next campsite was still 5 miles away and it was now around 5:00 PM. With a big sigh, we headed down the pass hoping to find a site before then. We hiked for almost 2 hours and was lucky to spot a great campsite on a stream right at our 15 mile point of the day...awesome!

We set up camp and both had ramen noodles for dinner...one of our favorite meals. The mosquitoes seemed to stay away while we ate, but started coming out in a vengeance when we were finishing.

We quickly cleaned up and were in our tents around 8:00 PM...earlier than usual, but we can use the extra sleep tonight after climbing 2 passes in one day.

Tomorrow's hike doesn't look as bad as today, but there is a lack of campsites at the 15 mile point. So we will have to stop short or hike extra miles. We will make the decision as we go along. But for now, I better plan for the worst and get a good nights sleep in case we have to hike over 15 miles tomorrow. So goodnight for now...

It's amazing what an extra 15 minutes can do. I actually woke at 6:20, so it was 20 extra minutes. When we went into the tents last night it was petty warm, but this morning was chilly. Since we were at 7,883 feet I thought it would be warmer...I even left the wind fly off my tent last night.

The good news is that no cathole is required this morning and the solar powered bathroom was clean, smelled nice, and was warm.

Even though we slept in, we were ready to hike at 7:48 AM. Although Kristen wasn't hiking with us, we asked her to join us in our morning photo.

Looking at the map and terrain, today's hike doesn't look too bad. There are a couple of climbs and a couple of declines, but no passes and in between the terrain looks lovely.

Here is the bridge that connects the PCT to the campground we stayed at last night...pretty substantial.

Right after crossing the bridge back to the PCT, I noticed this cool PCT sign they must be pretty old the way it is embedded into the bark of this tree.

When the terrain map shows gentle hiking it usually means hiking through a meadow.

The trail today was so beautiful.

Just before noon, as we were hiking, a large group was coming in the opposite direction. It was a Boy Scout troop. They told us that for a river crossing coming up to go left to find a log to cross. Cool...thanks for the intelligence.

When we arrived at the creek there were other hikers walking thighs the water. We listened to the Boy Scouts and went left and there was the log. Share Bear went over it with no fear in the world.

For some reason, this log crossing spooked me. The log was pretty high up and was pretty long. I stood for a while looking at it, and then just went and successfully made it.

Just over 1 mile later we stopped for lunch. We decided to not take too long of a lunch break because there is a lake 2.5 miles up from here that we hoped would be nice enough to swim in. All this time in the mountains, and we haven't stopped for a swim in any of these alpine lakes. We are hoping today is the day since we were making pretty good time.

Most of the 2.5 miles to the lake were uphill. As we were getting closer I warned Share Bear not to get her hopes up about this lake. We have passed many alpine lakes that were brown, or too rocky to swim in. Just before 3:30 PM the lake came into view:

From here it looked good. As we got closer it look AMAZING!  It was all we hoped for and more. Nice blue water with a sandy shore and grass around it. As we threw out bags down, Pinot and Pirate showed up and joined us. As did Karal from the Czech Republic, who today we found out was a pediatric surgeon.

The water was cold, but I managed to get it. Pirate shot the photo of us enjoying the lake:

We spent 2 hours there and decided it was time to hike the last 3.3 miles to our planned campsite for the night. We also decided that we needed to stop and swim in these alpine lakes more often.

Of course the scenery continued to amaze.

Just after 6:00 PM we arrived to the campsite and found Andy already setup. We asked if he minded if we joined him and he said of course not. Just after we arrived, Pinot and Pirate arrived. There was room for them as well.

We all setup camp and cooked and ate dinner together. Andy is the range manager at China Lake Navy Station, so we had some things in common to talk about. He is out hiking for a few days.

After a somewhat nice dinner...the mosquitos are no fun around here...we all retired to our tents. Tomorrow we are back to waking up at 6:00 AM. Tomorrow's  hike will not be as easy as today's. We have a pass to climb in the morning, and then what looks like another pass in the late afternoon. I better get a good nights sleep to help prepare. With the flat site and the sound of the nearby stream, that shouldn't be a problem.

Today started just like other days on the trail. We all woke, packed our bags, ate breakfast, and were ready to hike just before 7:30 AM.

We have just under 11 miles to hike to get to Tuolumne Meadows and meet up with Tim. We know there is a snack bar there, so we are anxious to get there in time for lunch.  

Luck for us, the 11 miles are mostly following this incredible Meadow, so the terrain is pretty easy with no hills to climb or descend.

Check out this cute ground squirrel. They stand up on their hind legs and then make a whistling noise to warn the others...so cute.

Right at 10:00 AM, 2.5 hours after starting our hike, we are halfway there.

We were doing well. We had about 5.5 miles to go and figured we would make it to Tuolumne Meadows by 12:30 PM. Then, things started going bad for Brad.

He wasn't feeling well, he had very little energy. We stopped and discussed all the options. One, he could continue on with us and ignore the symptoms; two, he can come off the trail, recuperate, and get back on where he gets off and lose us as hiking partners; three, he gets off the trail, recuperate, and get back on the trail where we are and continue hiking with us.

After a discussion he decided on three. He will take the bus back to Mammoth Lakes and stay with Tim and then have 10 days to get better and join us back on the trail in Lake Tahoe.  Once the decision was made, things were better and we continued hiking. This meadow is so gorgeous.

We made it to Rafferty Creek bridge, 2.6 miles from Tuolumne Meadows, when we met up with Tim. He shared shares some cherries with us and then we were ready to get going. Because Brad wasn't feeling well, him and Brad traded backpacks.

1.4 miles out from Tuolumne Meadows there was a PCT sign.

There was a fork in the trail that went to the Tuolumne Meadows Campground that Tim said was the faster way to the general store and cafe, but it would cut off 1.6 miles of the PCT. Him and Brad went that way, and Share Bear and I continued on the PCT. With this kind of scenery, we made that right decision.  

At 1:30 Share Bear and I made it to the general store. Tim and Brad were already there.

There must have been at least 30 hikers there, both PCT and JMT hikers. One of the hikers here was 007, the British guy who Barbra and I met on the second day on the trail. He got a couple of stress fractures on his foot, so he went home for a few weeks to heal and then returned to the trail. It was amazing seeing him. His visa runs out 17 September, so there is no way he will be able to make it all the way to Canada, but he is going to continue hiking and get as far as he can.


There is a post office here that many hikers use for resupply. We are lucky enough to have Tim, who brought our resupply with him on his motorcycle. We spent the next 3 hours socializing, eating, drinking Gatorade, and repacking our bear canisters with 5 days worth of food.

Just after 4:00 PM, the Mammoth Lakes bus arrived, so we hugged and said goodbye to Brad as he boarded the bus. Then said goodbye to Tim as he hopped on his motorcycle, and Share Bear and I took off back to the trail.

It was 4:30 PM and the next campsite was 5.8 miles away. We had some hiking to still do.  At this point, we left the JMT behind and are now hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail as it cuts through Yosemite National Park.

During the hike to the campsite we met Swede and Irish, a couple from...well...you can guess. We also met Pinot and Pirate, a couple from Napa, California. Between the socializing and the scenery, the miles went by pretty fast.

All was good and then there were sections of the trail that looked awesome, but were awful to hike on:

Less than 3 hours from leaving Tuolumne Meadows, we arrived at Glen Aulin backpacker campground. This place was awesome with running water and a really nice solar powered, compost outhouse.

We setup our tents next to a weekend hiker, Kristin's tent. Kristen is a nurse that just out-processed from the Army reserves. As we were eating dinner together, Stork joined us. Stork is a midwife, but has practiced nursing/EMT all over the world.  After the hike she is returning to Chad to help startup a medical clinic. She has been to Chad before, and during dinner told us some amazing stories of her time there.

After dinner we brought our bear canisters to the bear locker and used the amazing bathroom before hitting our tents. I convinced Share Bear that we should wake at 6:15 AM tomorrow since I was tired and could use the extra 15 minutes of sleep...so nice.

I awoke at 5:59 AM and one minute later heard Brad's alarm go off. I quickly packed my stuff and jumped out of the tent since nature was calling and I had to filter water before hiking today and we have to cover about 15 miles today.

As I was filtering water I looked down the trail and Tim was hiking up it. What?!?  Last night he saw that we had stopped only 2.30 miles from Agnew Meadow Trailhead where he can drive to, so he woke at the crack of dawn, drove to the trailhead, and hiked the 2.30 miles uphill and arrived at our campsite before 7:00 AM...how incredibly cool. Plus he brought us some hard-boiled eggs, cherries, and yogurt for breakfast. It was all quite a surprise.

After the surprise and eating the breakfast treats we were ready to hike at 7:45 AM.

Tim decided to hike with us a bit further up trail. When he hiked in 3.5 miles he turned back. A 7 mile hike is quite a healthy distance. We said goodbye till we see him tomorrow in Tuolumne Meadows where he is going to resupply us.

After he left we hiked on for a few more miles and then took a short break. We then hiked a bit more and had a great view of 1,000 Island Lake.

When we got down there we of course had to take a little break at the lake.

When we got back onto the trail we noticed that the PCT and the JMT had joined back up together. There goes the nice grade of the PCT.

Immediately we began to climb towards Island Pass and got another amazing view of 1,000 Island Lake: 

Island Pass is a whole 400 foot climb in 1.70 miles. This was by far the easiest pass we have climbed and crossed, but we still took a "pass celebration" picture:

About 1 mile down from the pass w stopped for lunch.  We sure are taking a lot of breaks today!  Usually we take 1.5 - 2 hours for lunch, but there were crazy flies everywhere. So we cut the lunch break short.

At this point we had about 4 miles to the top of Donahue Pass that for some reason we didn't think it was going to be too bad of a climb up to it. I guess we were feeling good...probably because if all the breaks today...and the scenery was taking our minds off the 4 miles of climbing we have in front of us. 

As usual, the marmot were out and as cute as ever:

Then the climb started getting serious. Steep steps made of rock, climbing up granite, just a hard, steep trail. To make it even worse, the mosquitos we awful. When you stopped for a break they would attack. I learned to take a quick break if there was a breeze that would blow the bugs away.

We had no idea, as usual, where this trail was taking us, but it is somewhere up there:

We finally made it to the top at 5:45 PM. Not only was it the top of Donahue Pass, we were now entering Yosemite National Park...so cool!

As usual, we made it to the top of a pass late in the day. Now we have to hike over 2 more miles to get to out planned campsite for the night. Under normal conditions this would take 1 hour, but we know better than that. Going down passes is usually as hard as going up. Donahue Pass seemed to follow that pattern exactly. 

Because we were rushing to get down, I didn't take many pictures, but I did snap this one showing the amazing beauty as we descended down the pass:

We were less than 1 mile from our planned stop for the night and we had to ford a stream. We were so not into this, especially since it was getting late and the mosquitos were still crazy. But ford we must, so I removed my shoes (Share Bear and Brad put in their water shoes) and forded across. We then quickly, before the mosquitos are us alive, dried our feet and replaced our hiking shoes.

We hiked on and Brad found a nice campsite a bit short from where we were planning, so we called it a night and stopped there. This was about 7:30 PM.

I quickly pitched my tent with crazy mosquitos everywhere and cooked my dinner with my mosquito net on. There was no way I could eat, so I took my pot of salmon couscous into my tent and ate in peace.

Tomorrow we hike into Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park were Tim is going to meet us to resupply our food. We want to be there for lunch, but have almost 12 miles, so I better get to bed so I can get a good night sleep before rushing to Tim.

Waking up in the condo was great. Getting out of bed at the condo was awful. I didn't want to leave the bed, but it was now 7:20 AM and I had to get in the shower.

Share Bear is already in the kitchen...she is an early riser...but no sign of Brad. I jump in the shower and the hot isn't too hot. Brad must be taking a shower upstairs at the same time. I quickly shower, just fast enough to be done by the time the hot water runs out.

I put on my uniform.  That's what it feels like when I put on my hiking clothes. After two down days in Mammoth Lakes we are headed back on the trail. We all move slowly, eat breakfast slowly, pack our backpacks slowly. We want to get back to hiking, but at the same time we want to stay here, in this comfy condo, and enjoy another day eating out, relaxing on the couch, having a glass of wine. But, Canada calls so we much hike.

We left the condo at 9:00 AM. Tim drove us to the ski resort where we will take a bus back to Red's Meadow. At 9:36 AM we are out of the 4Runner and ready to go.

We arrived at Red's Meadow Resort where Brad and Share Bear decided they needed a milkshake before hiking. At 11:25 AM we were back on trail...well, sort of. We decided to take the Devil's Postpile Alternate. The PCT/JMT goes around Devil's Postpile, so we have to take the alternate to see it.  

20 minutes later we entered Devil's Postpile National Monument.

This Devil's Postpile is really cool. It is a rock formation formed by lava 100,000 years ago and the polished by ice 30,000 years ago. At least that's what I remember reading on one of the signs. The cool part is that the rock formed into hexagons. Check it out:

We took the trail to the top of Devil's Postpile and got to see the hexagon shapes from above...I know...right!

Just after Devil's Postpile, the PCT/JMT trail went to the left. Then, at mile 909.02 the JMT and PCT split for the next 13.9 miles. As soon as we took the PCT direction we were greeted with a PCT sign. We were so excited. We haven't seen this sign for 150 miles!

Check out this beautiful bridge built over the middle fork of the San Joaquin River:

At point the PCT followed the San Joaquin River for a while and then headed up for almost 2,000 feet. The good news is that we are back on the PCT where the grade of the trail is much more gradual than the JMT since it was built to allow for horses and other pack animals.

Just astray the bridge we decided to stop for lunch and a break and wound up staying there for almost 2 hours. After 2 days of not hiking, we have to ease our way back into it.

After lunch, the pleasant trail up took us through a beautiful pine forest:

These PCT signs are so great to see:

We headed up some switchbacks and came across this sign stating that we are in the Ansel Adams Wilderness:

Wow...the wildflowers up here are just amazing. I saw these flowers and had to take a picture.

We were trying to make it to a campsite at mile 919.95. At this point we wouldn't make it to camp until 7:30 - 8:00 PM. Share Bear and Brad wasn't feeling it, so we started looking for a place to camp. Around 6:30 PM we came across a stream and found a spot a little bit up the trail from it.

We quickly setup camp and then quickly cooked and ate dinner before the mosquitos ate us for dinner. We were all in our tents by around 8:00 PM before sunset. It is nice to call it quits earlier than usual tonight. I woke up still tired, so I now have plenty of time to big and get plenty of sleep.

Tomorrow we need to hike at least 15 miles including climbing over one pass, so the extra sleep will be nice.