We started in Mammoth Lakes and hiked 37 miles in 3 days through the Ansel Adams and John Muir Wilderness Areas, ending up at Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite.
You know you're surrounded by Bankheads when there are discussions like the one at this particular spot about physics, chemistry and anatomy with regards to snow location and caloric expenditure.
Our first day we hiked 8 miles to camp, enjoying beautiful wild flowers and great views along the way.
After setting up camp, we hiked to Thousand Island Lake and were amazed at how clear the water was.
John went for a swim...
and his brothers decided to join him.
It was so pretty. We would have loved to spend a full day there.
Being in bear country, we used bear boxes to keep us and our food safe, and set up our "kitchen" away from our tents.
We enjoyed a full moon every night.
The second day we continued our trek, stopping at a lake for snacks before splitting up the group.
Alan needed to head out early for the first day of his new P.A. job. John, Byron, and I accompanied him most of the way out, adding on an extra 4 or 5 miles and a lot of elevation loss and gain, but it was beautiful!
We met back up with Austin, Paul, and Jace at Silver Lake where they had taken naps while waiting for us. We took a break to cook lunch and refill on water.
Then off for a few more miles before setting up camp at Waugh Lake.
We decided to take a bath and ice our legs in the lake before dinner. The water was freezing, but our feet and legs loved it after having hiked 12 miles that day.
We iced again in the morning before heading out.
We were continually amazed at our beautiful surroundings.
By lunch time we reached the saddle that crossed over into Yosemite.
We ate, took a short break, and headed down.
The original plan was to hike 12 miles, camp, and finish the last 5 miles in the morning.
However, Jace, John, and I were antsy and really wanted to see Yosemite Valley, as we'd never been there before.
We decided to split up.
Austin, Byron, and Paul followed the original plan, while the three of us pushed the full 17 miles out.
We were happy to be done hiking and even happier to see The Valley.
The amount of granite in that area is crazy! El Cap was massive and made the climbers look like ants.
The falls were beautiful.
The lighting on half dome was perfect.
We drove back to Mammoth that night, stopping at McDonald's (the only place open) for dinner before setting up camp in the back of the minivans.
It was a rough night of sleep, but life was great after getting in an awesome 9 mile run and having these amazing pastries and fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast.
Life was even better after a $5 shower at the local campground.
We were as happy as could be when we met up with the other three brothers at the trail head.
The drive home was not nearly as exciting as the drive there...it never is. However, we were able to see this:
It took up the entire road, so we had a little bit of a delay. There were 4 semis pushing it and 2 semis pulling it and it had a "radioactive" sign on it. Whatever it was, wasn't light. We all thought it was pretty cool.
2 comments:
Next time there you'll definitely have to had Half Dome into your hiking plans. It is really awesome.
That seriously looks like some hardcore trekking! But so worth the views, I'm sure. The pictures are gorgeous! I will definitely have to add this to our list of places to go.
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