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| JOHN MUIR TRAIL |
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| Tuesday, July 4, 2000 Yosemite Valley After our 27 hour bus ride from Vancouver we were exhausted and badly in need of a shower. We had some lunch in Yosemite Valley village, used the nearby showers and set off on the JMT around 3PM. |
| DAY 1 - The bright blue sky and the incredible beauty of Yosemite motivated our tired bodies up the steep ascent out of the valley amongst the throng of dayhikers. An abundance of horse manure on the trail had us holding our breath while climbing the canyon...not nice! But the views of the valley and waterfalls got more and more rewarding as we climbed. Shortly after a late afternoon snack above Nevada Falls and a visit with the local park ranger we ran into our first (and ONLY) bear! |
| Day 1 - Lower Yosemite Valley |
| Day 1 - Nevada Falls, Upper Yosemite |
| Some other hikers were cooking dinner and the very brave bear was just hanging out in the middle of the trail between myself and the other hikers. They were throwing rocks at it but it didn't seem to mind, until it noticed me standing on the trail behind |
| July 4 - 19, 2000 by Brad & Christy |
| it and bolted off into the trees. It didn't go very far before it turned around to watch me slowly walk up the trail pounding two rocks together noisily. Christy was a couple of minutes behind me, so I waited with the dinner-cooking hikers and warned her of the bear lurking in the woods to her left. |
| We tried to hike as far as we could to put distance between us and the bear, but it got dark within an hour of our bear encounter (maybe 2 miles) so we stealth camped right beside a huge boulder a few hundred metres away from some other camped hikers. After a quick, cold dinner away from our tent, we crawled into bed very tired from a long day of traveling and hiking...but we wouldn't get any sleep yet! Shortly after dark the sound of banging pots and yelling from the campers below alerted us to the return of the bear! (I am assuming it was the same bear from earlier that evening but I can't be sure.) At least an hour went by with no sign of the bear and our stealth camp was looking very good when suddenly the dark silhouette of the bear silently passed just a few feet away from our tent! The bear didn't smell us and in fact, didn't even seem to take notice of us just a few feet away, and just kept walking away into the night and out of our lives...but not out of my mind! It was very hard to get a good sleep that night! |
| DAY 2 - We slept in late after being up late on our bear-watch and didn't get started on the trail until around 11:30 AM. We hiked about 9.5 miles today with a long lazy lunch break at Sunrise Camp. It was much cooler and windier today. |
| Lots of elevation gain today including an out-of-breath climb around 2 PM getting us above 10000 feet. Beautiful alpine meadows meant a few mosquitos too. We camped high up (I think above 10000 feet) on a ridge with an incredible panorama view as the sun set into the purple sky. Christy found the elevation gave her a fitful sleep but at least no bears! |
| Day 2 - Ridge Camp, Yosemite |
| DAY 3 - 7.5 miles downhill into Tuolumne Meadows by 11:30 AM. Our first stop was the camp store and grill: burger, hot dog, Coke, fresh fruit and Ben & Jerry's ice cream! We picked up our food package and set up camp in almost the exact same spot as I had 4 years earlier during my PCT trek. We took the rest of the day off and lazed around by the river. Take the free shuttle to Tuolumne Lodge for showers, it's a long walk! Note: Showers were only open from 12-3:30 PM to hikers and cost $2. |
| For comprehensive trail information, check out http://www.pcta.org/about_trail/muir/over.asp TRAIL JOURNAL: |
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