Ramblin' Rose...: Day 5

Day's start: near the bridge at Lyell Forks
Day's end: Garnet Lake
Day's miles: 12.2 miles
Total trip miles: 46.3 miles

This morning I made a big point to stretch for a good long while before we started hiking, and it paid off big time! I am just amazed at the difference that stretching can do for your body. Everybody should stretch - especially if you are planning on really working your body everyday.

Within the first 15 minutes of hiking, we came to this pretty meadow.I can just tell that today is going to be a beeeautiful day.

When we got started this morning, we immediately started to climb and after about 500 vertical feet we saw the most beautiful campsite - clearly this is where we should have been camping last night! We also saw the most beautiful river... that we had to cross. I knew there would be stream and river crossings on this trip, this one just caught me a little off guard - I guess I didn't think we'd be doing this on day 5! It seemed pretty wide and you could see the snow in the mountains where the river originated, so you just knew it was going to be cold. What a way to wake up! Today I learned that: cold river crossings = better than coffee.

We thought about trying to go around, but we finally decided against it when we saw Mike and his friend on the other side of the river (they were smart and camped here for the night), and they said to just take your shoes off and go for it. The water was very cold, and came up almost to my knees, and after I finished crossing it my feet were burning they felt so cold.

This is right after our morning river crossing. If you look real close, you can see some campsites nestled close to where you would start climbing Donahue. Clearly, this is where we should have camped. Oops.

After our first successful river crossing we began the climb up Donahue Pass, and I felt so good I was even setting the pace! Oh my goodness, the climb to the top was beautiful. The lakes were the most beautiful shade of blue, little streams bubbled everywhere, green grass and wildflowers were in full bloom, and the sun was just peaking out over the top of Donahue Pass which just made everything look that much better. While climbing up Donahue Pass, we also crossed a few more rivers (shoes off, and rock-hopping), and got to hike on a snowfield for the first time ever when we got towards the top. I'm not sure if it was the beautiful scenery, that we had both stretched real good this morning, or that we were finally getting used to the altitude, but we rocked up Donahue Pass! We were both a little worried about this first real pass as we had heard some pretty awful things about it, but it did nothing to slow us down today - we were on a roll!

Going up Donahue

Hiking on a snowfield while climbing Donahue Pass

At the top of Donahue Pass, we passed a sign that said we were crossing from Yosemite National Park to Inyo National Forest Ansel Adams Wilderness - we had successfully hiked out of our first park and into our second! Cresting the top of Donahue Pass was a beautiful thing (a lot of "beautiful's" today, but I can't help it. It really, really was.). Looking backwards, the blue rivers and lakes we had crossed earlier in the day had become small and looked like they belonged on a model train set, and looking forward was just miles and miles of beautiful blue mountain ranges as far as the eye could see. We were both so excited - soon we will be hiking over there too! We found a spot to take a quick Snickers break on the top of the pass and took in the view and reveled in our new found strength for a few minutes.

Stopping for water at the top of Donahue.

We made it out of Yosemite and are starting the Ansel Adams Wilderness!

Hiking down the other side of Donahue Pass, the scenery continued to impress. Everywhere you looked there were little streams with the clearest water meandering all over the landscape, the grass was the greenest I had seen yet, mountains and fluffy white clouds framed every view, and there were wildflowers galore.

Midway through the day, we began our second climb of the day (Island Pass), and we rocketed up this one as well - perhaps we really have gotten stronger over the past few days... On the top of Island Pass we ran into Mike and his friend again, as well as met a new friend, Rob. We chatted with them for awhile, and Aaron found that he followed a lot of the same blogs and video blogs that the rest of the guys did. This was very cool, as it's not everyday that you run into people that are as crazy into hiking and backpacking as we are.

Hiking down Island Pass, we quickly came to a stunning view of Thousand Island Lake. A long time ago, Aaron had watched a video where the opening shot was a time lapse video of morning breaking over this lake, and he had since always wondered where it was. It was here! How neat to finally find this spot.

Taking a break near Thousand Island Lake

Around afternoon, we were still feeling pretty good so we continued on past Ruby Lake and rounded Garnet Lake until we found a wonderful camp spot overlooking the lake that had our names written all over it. After we set up camp, we were passed by the group of 6 guys and one of them came back to use our water front property to wash up and shared with us his stories of chasing away bears in the middle of the night a few nights ago. Both Aaron and I have yet to see a bear in the flesh (in the fur? Whatever.), but it appears that if you use a bear canister instead of hanging your food (better known as a "bear piñata"), you will most likely not have any problems.

Emerald Lake