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.
Category Archives: Photography
Lyell Canyon, Yosemite
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.
Lyell Canyon
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.
Lyell Canyon
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?)
The John Muir Trail
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….
Lyell Glacier
As seen from the lower meadow below Donahue Pass
Lyell Glacier
Taken from the lower of two alpine meadows below Donahue Pass along the John Muir Trail.
Vernal Falls from Above
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.
Lyell Glacier, Yosemite
This is the upper of two alpine meadows below Donahue Pass along the John Muir Trail.
On The Mist Trail
This was taken on the first backpacking expedition Teresa and I took into the Yosemite back country in 2003. The Mist Trail runs up by Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls to connect with the John Muir Trail, which I had always wanted to set foot on.
Still haven’t done the JMT in a single run-through, but I have made four trips out along some sections of it. Don’t know if at this age (66) I’ll ever do the whole thing at once, but last Summer Teresa and I and our friend, Cliff, spent ten days slogging uphill along that trail with 50 pound packs. Didn’t die. Cliff’s pack was, in fact, 65 pounds. He didn’t die either.