Days 1-3

Day 1 – June 7

We already saw a bear and changed itinerary. At 8, Kurt from Lone Pine picked us up to shuttle us to Yosemite. But we forgot my trekking poles in my car when we dropped it off at Whitney Portal last night, so we had to go back and get those first. Kurt turned out to be an awesome 73-year-old retired Air Force & commercial pilot. He drove us to the trailhead and sent us off with words of wisdom for making a marriage last 50+ years.

We got to Yosemite to pick up our permits around 2. We ended up getting a permit for Happy Isles to Sunset Lakes for the first night, because there was a cancellation earlier in the day, which meant hiking almost 10 miles instead of 4 to Illilouette Falls. We had to book it since we got a late afternoon start and we climbed about 3500 feet. We set up camp by a stream near Clouds Rest Junction and deer were strolling around all over the place.  I made dinner while John made a fire, and now we’re lying in bed amazed that we get to be on this great adventure together.

Day 2 – June 8

I broke my ray bans this morning. Nothing a little duct tape can’t fix. Kind of. Today we got up after 7 and didn’t leave camp until 9:45. We were planning on going about 7/7.5 miles to Sunrise Jct., but when we got there, we were hiking through swarms upon swarms of mosquitos, so we kept pressing on to Cathedral Lakes and we are camping here. It’s still teeming with mosquitos. Somehow we managed to walk out into the lake and wash off despite the freezing water and mosquitos, so I think that will help us sleep better and wake up refreshed. We had awesome pork & potatoes for dinner and now I’m pooped. We already made up a day on our trip- this was scheduled as our third night’s camp and it’s only night 2- so, so far so good. Goodnight.

Day 3 – June 9

We are kicking butt out here. We barely escaped the mosquitos this morning and we stopped for lunch at Tuolumne Grill (can you say yummy burger) and kept going after that until about 5, when we made camp at Evelyn Junction. We hiked through a bunch of mud (but no mosquitos) and we saw a lot of deer and marmots. It was absolutely beautiful as we hiked down from Cathedral Lakes, along Tuolumne River, and Lyell Fork. It was flat with very little elevation change. It looked like it was going to storm pretty bad all afternoon, but never did- we’ll see how it goes from here.

We have one blister each and we smell like dirty socks, but other than that we are both totally healthy- just very sore!