Looking back toward Tuolumne Meadows from whence we started. As I recall, this was our 2004 expedition. We first backpacked in Yosemite in 2003, just Teresa and me together. The next year we took a different route up and over Donahue Pass with our dear departed friend, Bob, though he was not yet departed at the time. Doesn’t that conjure up an image? We skipped a year, then recreated that route with two other friends in 2006. After a six year hiatus we hike the same route yet again with my daughter and son-in-law. Then, after 7 years we struck out on a new route with Teresa’s high-school friend, Cliff, and spent 10 days in the back country, schlepping up steep switchbacks with fifty pound packs – more than I’d ever carried on trail before and, at age 66, not something I recommend. Cliff’s pack was 65 pounds. Don’t know how he did it. But I had him beat – I was 50 pounds over my ideal body weight at the time, something else I’ve never done before. Planning on continuing these expeditions until I drop (which could be next week, who knows?)