Looking back toward Kuna Crest and Lyell Canyon from the meadow below Donahue Pass.

Came across this scene on our first backpacking trip in Yosemite in 2003. Teresa and I took a circle route up the Mist Trail and then around and down to Tuolumne Meadows. At this point in the path we left an open area and entered an almost mystical environment that quickly became more wooded as we set off for Cathedral Peak some miles out ahead. I recall stopping and in seeing the trail curve into the wilderness that we were finally not only leaving civilization behind, but any connection to it as well.

Looking back from whence we came (toward Kuna Crest and Lyell Canyon) provided a spectacular view with the clouds cooperating to build a fantastic backdrop. Lyell Glacier is just behind us, as the John Muir Trail winds past it on the way to Donahue Pass at 11,000+ feet – our next destination.

Easily visible along several of the trails that spread out around Yosemite Valley, Vogelsang Peak is easily identifiable with its pointy top. It oversees an unspoiled land, essentially unaltered from the natural course of its creation an evolution.

The Lyell Fork of the Merced River flows along the center of the miles-long meadow-like Lyell Canyon. Off to the side, one can find ponds and reflections of the peaks that lay ahead on the trail.

The John Muir Trail winds along the edge of the forest down Lyell Canyon which stretches some nine miles from Tuolumne Meadows (the direction we are looking) and then climbs up majestic craggy ridges to Donahue Pass at some 11,000+ feet (several miles distant behind this camera position).

Just before that steep rise begins, there is a tree graveyard (pictured here) where ancient gnarled branches and trunks are strewn across the end of the meadow as if they had fallen in some great battle.

The JMT runs about five feet behind this camera position, and I stepped off trail to shoot these trees over this particular branch which looked to me like the remnant antlers of some beast that had long since otherwise returned to the earth.

Near the far end of Lyell Canyon headed out from Tuolumne Meadows, thee is an open, treeless area where the John Muir Trail winds along below Kuna Crest. I’ve traveled this section many times on my way up and over Donahue Pass.

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?)