One of our team members - Neon - left his car in Mammoth for the summer so we were lucky enough to have wheels during our resupply. That also means we got to take a side trip to Yosemite. What a valley! It was my first time visiting the national park and it was a fantastic day full of granite domes, waterfalls, and of course lots of hiking. What else would we do on a rest day?
Over all this section has been phenomenal. Lots of challenging stream crossings but we are slowly making our way out of the snow and back to the lower elevation greenery. It is a joy to finally see the trail again and feel like we can bump our milage up to 25-30 again. Now that we are through the toughest section it is time to get serious about making it to Canada!
I am still hiking with the same group of 8 and couldn't ask for a better team or a better year to be hiking the PCT!
Just a reminder that Hannah and I are still working on our fundraiser for Inspiring Girls Expeditions. We are trying to earn one dollar for every mile we hike to send high school girls on Wilderness Science Expeditions. Please see
this link for more information. Even a 10 dollar donation helps a lot and gets us ten miles closer to our goal!
Please enjoy the photos and captions below,
Cheers!
Wasabi
PS - Photo credit goes to Ryan Unger for any pictures with me in them.
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| The bountiful amount of water flowing through The Valley is turning everything green and luscious! |
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| Sunset joy! |
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| Awesome orange fungus! |
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| This was one of our deeper crossings |
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| Sometimes we go over snow bridges and sometimes we crawl unde |
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| 1000 miles?!? Can't believe it |
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| Sonora Pass beauty |
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| Unger likes to prove that umbrellas are useful even with an ice axe in hand |
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| One of the last high passes! Yippeee! |
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| Flowers, mountains and hikers, what could be better? |
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| Tony very kindly gave us a hitch into Kennedy Meadows North in the back of his truck |
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| Sometimes we slip and "turtle" on the snow |
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| Sometimes I hike solo and sometimes we hike in more of a line, both are great |
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| Sometimes we are tired and just want to make a face! |
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| And suddenly we find ourselves in a volcanic landscape instead of granite |
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| Taking a look at the storm rolling in |
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| Snow is becoming more intermittent the further north we get but it definitely isn't gone |
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| This was a rather precipitous location for the trail |
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| Getting drinking water is beautiful when you get to see the reflection of these mountains in the lake! |
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| Sometimes we are tired and it's time for a quick siesta... some of the guys carry umbrellas for sun and rain protection... usually I make fun of them but this was pretty nice! |
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| In this picture you can see how trails tend to migrate over time. In a meadow the water table is just below the surface so as soon as the trail is worn down enough it becomes muddy and hikers move slightly to the left or right leaving the original tread to recover. Sometimes we can see five parallel scars telling the history of a trail! |
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| We cross miles of suncups |
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| And sometimes they are rather deep suncups!!! |
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| Climbing up up up |
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| And down down down |
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| If you look closely you can tell I'm drinking water, not taking a picture, but both compete for the top priority! |
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| We
hitched a ride into the Whoa Nellie Deli at the Mobile with a wonderful
trail angel named Brian. This has to be the most famous and gourmet gas
station I've ever been to! |
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| Early morning silhouette shot! |
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| Recently we have found more sections of real trail instead of just route finding and off trail navigation all day... this makes us smile |
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| Here I am looking out at Yosemite Valley again |
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| Plenty of green meadows and lakes down in the valleys, some of them are ice free and others are not but we make sure to swim at least once a day regardless! |
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| The wildflowers are glorious! |
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| The wildflowers are out in full force! |
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| Indian paintbrush makes me feel like I'm back in Washington |
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| Sometimes we cross streams like this |
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| But often we cross streams just like this! |
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| When the bugs get bad everyone crawls in my tent for dinner |
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| Scrambled up a granite dome driving into Yosemite and this is the view we were rewarded with |
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| Scenery makes every dinner delicious! |
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| Cathedral peak, a granite spire in Yosemite that my friend and Unger (the most experienced climber in our group) summited in a past trip in the Sierra |
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| El Cap- arguably the most famous climb in Yosemite... later under the full moon we got to watch tiny pin pricks of light inch their way up the wall and teams continued their push to the top |
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| Leaving Mammoth this is what we saw, it's always a good feeling to get back on the trail but especially when you get to walk along seeing this! |
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| The Tuolumne Meadows post office was closed so I picked up packages in Yosemite Valley itself... so excited by the care packages from Galena and grandma and grandpa Kavanaugh... thank you!!! |
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| The view from the base of half dome! I'll definitely have to come back to climb all the way to the top some day! |
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| That's a long drop down to the base of Vernal falls! |
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| Vernal falls on the way up to the base of half dome... so much power! |
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| Bridalveil falls - a 620 foot waterfall in Yosemite. A classic example of a hanging valley left over after glaciers retreated |
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| So much beauty on both the micro and macro scales! |
