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?)

Near the end of Lyell Canyon, the JMT gently winds into a lightly forested area before beginning the climb to Donahue Pass.

That’s Teresa in the distance, by the way….

As seen from the lower meadow below Donahue Pass

Taken from the lower of two alpine meadows below Donahue Pass along the John Muir Trail.

Vernal is the lower of two falls along the Mist Trail from Yosemite Valley that ultimately connects with the John Muir Trail just above the falls.

This is the upper of two alpine meadows below Donahue Pass along the John Muir Trail.