Today I said goodbye to Chris and Caleb. We would meet him in three days in Yosemite National Park. It was not just Amie and I on our own. Our original destination I had plotted on our map was for an 8 mile hike to a camp. But just before the trip, I noticed that there was no water at that camp. We could hike short of the camp, or push a couple of miles farther. W elected to push 2.5 to Sunrise High Sierra Camp for a total of 10.5 miles today. The day started with a hike through the woods without a trail. We didn't want to backtrack a mile or two along established trails to get to the JMT. We figured we could just follow our GPS until we hit the JMT. It worked! Probably saved us at least an hour and a half. We assumed most of our uphill hiking was over with....but we soon found out that was not true. We ascended grueling rocky trail that would go straight up, then flatten for a while, then go up again. At the top was Cathedral Lake...actually there were two lakes. We had a decent view but were really too far from the lake for a breathtaking view because the trail was rerouted farther away to let the land re-cooperate. We could have made a short hike down to the lake, but our stomachs were aching for lunch and my feet weren't willing to take the hike down and back up again. After lunch, we made it past Cathedral Peak to a breathtaking meadow with a stream running through it. It would have been a great place to build a cabin! We ascended another mountain and were rewarded with a great view of the beginning of Yosemite Valley. We then descended down to another meadow and approached our campsite for the night....Sunrise High Sierra Camp. This was a bakcountry resort of sorts but was not going to be in service for a couple of days. :) It did have a water fountain of sorts and an outhouse!...although it smelled so bad it made me gag. We setup camp on a ridge overlooking the meadow. We had the most beautiful campsite I've ever had. After camp setup, I remembered I had a large lemonade pack and made Amie and I about 16 ounces each. Boy did that hit the spot!!! I woke up at 5am the next morning to a sunrise view like I've never had. About 30 minutes later a pack of coyotes woke up Amie with their morning kill. :) I also had a chance to wash/rinse out my clothes. I had not done that since day 1!
