Day's end: Lower Cathedral Lake trail
Day's miles: 11.3 miles
Total trip miles: 18.4 miles
Today was a little better than yesterday. I think I may have really pulled a groin/thigh muscle. I was moving very slow (again) today, especially during the uphill parts - which was most of the day. Along the way, we ran into three guys who are also doing the JMT, but in 12 days (we are taking 19). I can't imagine doing more miles than I am already. Perhaps they are from Colorado somewhere and are used to functioning at this high altitude. I bet that would help. But still - can you really enjoy all this nice scenery when you're going so fast?
A morning visitor
Walking through more woods...
The trail leveled off a little when we came near the High Sierra Camp. Apparently people hike here in one day from Tuolumne Meadows OR ride in on horseback (which sounds pretty good right about now), and then they can enjoy the Cathedral Lake and Pass area and not really have to work too much. We hiked around this beautiful meadow and then climbed the last 600 feet to the top of Cathedral Pass.
The meadow near the High Sierra Camp
After walking down the other side of Cathedral Pass we decided to stop for a bit because upper Cathedral Lake was just screaming our names. We found a great spot next to the water, dumped our stuff and then prepared to jump in the water. The water turned out to be a lot colder than we thought, but Aaron had heard somewhere that dunking yourself in cold water was good for your chi, so... when in Rome, right? We jumped in, dunked ourselves, and then ran out to dry off in the sunshine. While we were drying off, the three guys showed up again and decided that they should also swim in Cathedral Lake. One of them kept saying between laughs, "I'm swimming in a glacial lake!"
We took a long time deciding if we should camp at this lake or move on a little bit more to make the next day into Tuolumne Meadows a little easier, but eventually we decided to move on a little over 1 mile to the lower Cathedral Lakes trail where there was supposed to be another campsite. The book/map we have is really great (and worked well for the entire trip), but we could not find this campsite anywhere and we looked high and low. We eventually just pitched the tent next in the flattest, rock-free section of ground we could find, which happened to be a fairly close to the trail - oh well. After we had set up camp and dinner was cooking, Aaron noticed that a big, dead tree leaning on another tree kept groaning and perhaps moved a little bit when the wind blew. As we didn't want to take the chance of being flattened like pancakes this early on in the trip, we picked up the whole tent (with everything inside it) and moved it to another location. This was a little bit of a challenge, as there were practically no good places to camp. We finally found a spot that looked relatively safe and then climbed into the tent after snapping this photo.
You can enlarge any of these pictures by clicking on them.
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