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Yosemite Hike Day 1

Got dropped off at Quartz Mountain trail head in Yosemite.  Took about 2.5 hours to drive to the trail head up a mountain on a bumpy rutted barely pavement road.  First time to the area for me, so, very cool new experience.

Me, Dad, and his friend Kevin starting a 6 day, 5 night backpacking trip through the Sierra Nevada Mountain range/Yosemite. 

Day 1 start at about 9am left us with most of the day to hike to our first destination: Chain Lakes.  9.8 miles hike up to the destination of the day, and trail running/exploring at the lakes.  

Yosemite Hike Day 2

Hike and trail running/exploring as we journeyed on up to Lower Ottoway Lake today.  Lots of vertical to gain and play on with plenty of beautiful scenery at every turn.  Seized opportunities at breaks and stops (for my Dad and Kevin) to drop my 30 pound backpack and do some trail running.  Brief 10 minute out and backs seemed to be ideal for exploring runs.   

Yosemite Hike Day 3

9600ft. up to 11,100ft. down to 9200ft. - general elevation recap today. from Ottoway Lake up to Red Peak Pass at 11k, down to Triple Peak Fork.  Did some "running" up the switch backs to Red Peak.  Lots of up and down today!    

Yosemite Hike Day 4

Out and back from Triple Peak Fork camp site preceding the hike.  Flat and runnable trails: 5.4 miles - 47:52.  Beautiful meadows and stream side trail with mountain views. 

Hike to Washburn Lake and then eventually the High Sierra Camp at Merced Lake (running water and bathrooms!)  from Triple Peak Fork.  about 12 miles of hiking total. 

Ran an out and back at lunch time.  from Washburn Lake to the Merced Camp:  5.85mi. - 55:22. 7500ft. down to 7200ft. back up to 75

Yosemite Hike Day 5

What a great day.  Best day ofthe trip and probably in my running life:

5:30a run from Merced High Sierra Camp Up and Up / Out and Back: 5.3mi. - 48:37.  900 ft. of Elev. gain (and loss) in 2miles.

Back to camp and started the hike with Dad and Kevin.  Hiking on my own for most of the day other than playing leap frog with a another group of hikers and a dad and his son.  Found decent up hill hiking rhythm for most of the morning, and cooled off with a bath in a creek around 10a.  Second real good "wash" of the week.  End destination at Emerick Lake required about 6 miles of hiking and 2k of climb.  Another beautiful mountain lake camp site.  I arrived around 12p and had a couple hours before Dad and Kevin made it.  Spent the time chilling in a shady spot and found a great camp site right on the water a couple feet away.  We set up camp and chatted and then had to really step on the gas to get the rain flies on the tents and throw the gear inside as an awesome thunderstorm with rain rolled in.  First mountain storm for me was awesome - lightning, thunder and heavy rain at 9400 ft.  I was plenty dry and safe in a cover of trees and inside my tent.  Stayed bone dry and took a nap through the last hour of the storm (best nap ever!) 

Storm blew over, and the sun came back out around 4:30.  Grabbed a bite and left out on a run.  Took a route that climbed from 9400 up to 10,200 at the Vogelsang High Sierra Camp.  The High Sierra Camps are literally a village of hotel room size tents and dining rooms, bathrooms, and lots of amenities.  By reservation for high paying customers only.  What an awesome run.  Out and back trip to climb, run through the camp, check out another Lake near by, and then descend back to lower camp at our lake.  9.7 miles in about 90 minutes, obviously slower on the climb. 

Yosemite Hike Day 6

Emerick Lake to the Tuolomne Meadows Visitor Center.  LAst day of the journey for me today.  Hiked up and over Tuolomne Pass and descended in to the junction point.  At this particular junction of the trail, a left took you to the TMeadows Vis. Cntr, and a right took you on to the JMT.  What another awesome experience - talking to hikers coming off of and leaving to go onto the JMT!  Promised dad I would wait for him at this junction, so I had a couple of hours to kill.  Dropped pack and did some hill repeats up and down the last descent to the juction point.  

After Kevin reached the junction, he went on to the visitor center.  About 90 minutes later, Dad caught up, and it started to rain... stuff got wet for first time all week.  we hiked in to the Finish line.  Car parked at the parking lot and Kevin was sitting in there waiting for us.  Lots of great pictures taken by Kevin and my Dad, but, I took no camera. 

Great hike and trip concluded.  We crushed icecream, and double burgers at the grill, cleaned up a little bit, and then hopped in the car for a 5 hour drive back to Fresno out of the park.  Unfortunately, a wildfire covered most ofthe Western part of the park in smoke and I did not get to see most of popular sites, such as ElCap, Half Dome, etc.  Other than the mosquitos and the wildfire, I couldn't have asked for a much better trip.    

A full day of travel.  4:30a drop off from my dad at the Fresno airport for a 6am flight taht got delayed.  Stop in Pheonix for an hour, and then 3.5 hours to Indy, where landing was delayed by weather.  Pretty scary landing as the pilot had to re-ascend from his origianl approach.  The big passenger plane got tossed around a couple times by the wind and we circled Indy for about 30 minutes before landing at 5p.  Hoofed it for the parked car.  literally walked 1.5 to get to the car from the plane.