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.