On into northern Yosemite

The early morning was chilly again and when I set off I thought my gloves were in my jacket pocket but they weren’t. So I went back up to my campsite and scouted around…. No, I had left nothing behind. Twenty minutes down the trail, I couldn’t stop thinking about the gloves, so I stopped and unpacked everything in my pack, until I found them inside my sleeping bag. I guess I didn’t put them in my pocket after all…. I went on in a less anxious and obsessive state of mind….

My pack was notably heavier than when I had arrived at Tuolumne. I had squeezed, just, eight days of food into the bear canister—and so I had eight days to reach Echo Lake, about 160 miles to the north.

The first miles of the day were mostly along the Tuolumne River, the largest of the streams I have followed. The trail meandered down through meadows and past plains of rocks dotted with erratics, then pulled away from the river and descended steeply through rocky terrain, back to the river at Glen Aulin, where there’s a large waterfall and a camp. People can walk in and sleep in one of the dozen or so canvas wall tents (there’s a kitchen tent too, and a bathroom tent); horses will haul in their personal effects. Or one can walk the six miles in with a pack and stay at the adjacent campground. Not quite backpacking but something other than car camping too. In the last mile or so I met a whole bunch of people returning to Tuolumne after a night or more at Glen Aulin. One was an East Asian man with a huge, messy pack and three children old enough to be embarrassed by their adventurous but inexperienced father.

Beyond Glen Aulin I walked another six miles, gently climbing, then a mile down into Virginia Canyon, then up again to Miller Lake, at 9500’, then down again into Matterhorn Canyon. I went one eight mile stretch without crossing a stream, the longest waterless section of the hike so far. This land in the northern part of Yosemite was drier than to the south, and the trail rather than following streams or valleys tended to climb precipitously up and over ridges, down to streams but then right back up again to the next ridge….

At the creek in Virginia Canyon, I passed a woman standing beside the water, with her back to me. The water was noisy enough that she didn’t know I was there, and just as I passed, maybe forty feet away, she lifted up her skirt, to get a little air (many women on the trail wear hiking skirts). She had nothing on underneath, which was interesting, but after a look I swiveled my head back forward, not wanting to be caught looking. But she looked over her shoulder as I was in the midst of looking away. It wasn’t like I was a peeping tom or something, I was just walking down the trail, but I still felt guilty….

The day’s climbs were quite steep and arduous, if not long, and so were the descents…. From the heights I had far and full views of jagged peaks, more tan and brown and yellow in color than the grays of the earlier days. Thicker forest too along this portion, in the canyons and on the slopes, though the mountaintops were still bare.

I camped beside Matterhorn Creek, after eleven hours and twenty-one miles of hiking. It was only 4:30 when I stopped but I’d done enough. A couple thru-hikers were resting at the stream when I arrived, but they soon went on. If someone plans to do the whole trail in a season, he or she mostly has to make use of all the daylight hours. On the other hand, if a thru-hiker is still in Yosemite in mid-July, it’s going to be tough to reach Canada before the first of the autumn snows in the North Cascades…..

I put up my tent in a small, pretty grove of trees, and soon made dinner, couscous with a handful of dried tomatoes and a packet of tuna. I also ate a fabulous avocado I’d gotten from the Tuolumne store. So good….

The shadow of the western ridge pushed the evening sunlight slowly across the meadow at the valley’s bottom, and I ate and read and thought about stuff….  I wasn’t feeling as enthused as on the two days leading into Tuolumne. The change in terrain, particularly the greater dryness, was an adjustment, and I’d gone the day without talking to anyone…. Despite the annoyances of Tuolumne Meadows, I suppose it is in a way reassuring to be around other people. Now I would have to get used to the quiet and solitude again….

I got in the tent at eight and read the two-day-old San Francisco Chronicle  I had picked up at Tuolumne….  But I soon put it aside and drifted off to sleep, as a mild breeze moving up the valley batted desultorily at the sides of the tent.