Miles hiked: 6
Unexpectedly for the Sierra at this time of year, it ended up raining off and on most of the night, to the chagrin of those hikers who went to bed a bit to drunk to properly set up their tents or tarps. I spent most of the at the picnic tables in front of the store, thoroughly entertained by hiker hijinx and the comings and goings of tourists from around the world. I'm pretty sure I even saw Fred Becky, a classic old Yosemite climber, walk through the parking lot carrying a school backpack with a rolled up blue foam pad tied to the outside. Hikers came and went, some head in up the trail, some hitching to Tahoe or the coast or somewhere. New and familiar faces settled in to the crowd with pints of ice cream or cheeseburgers. 4-5 guys used a bottle of bourbon to improve their perceived hacky sack skills. Someone found a ziplock bag with a fist sized ball of hair labeled "lamb's wool", and this spent most of the day on one of the tables, the source of much laughter every half hour or so. Clouds built through the day but never amounted to much more than a few sprinkles.
Around 5 I finally peeled myself away and struck out across the meadow. Cathedral Peak and the tall domes and spires all around it scratched up at the billowy, moody clouds, which themselves cast a patchwork of sunlight over the landscape. When in sunlight, the meadows glowed green. The trail loosely followed the Tuolumne River down stream. A half dozen mule deer bucks grazed along the river banks, their antlers velvety. With the big dramatic granite in he background and the river and meadows they looked like one of those hunter fantasy paintings you can buy from Cabela's and hang up in your hunting cabin or workshop or garage.
After 4 or so miles the trail began dropping down in to the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, which eventually is plugged with the Hetch Hetchy Dam. I read somewhere that John Muir considered the valley flooded by that dam to be equal or perhaps superior to Yosemite Valley in splendor.
The sky darkened as the trail wound down over big granite slabs and ramps made of bowling ball rocks. The sky darkened and thunder rolled through the valley. Scattered rain drops mixed with the mist of Tuolumne Falls as the trail bent by it, the river plunging down a cliff flanked with big rounded granite bedrock.
Down to the Glen Aulin High Sierra camp about 7:30. There is a whole series of these camps in Yosemite, and guests can basically day hike between them with a small pack, then stay in tent cabins and have meals at the camps. There is a section off to the side for hikers to camp, complete with toilets and a faucet with treated water. The camp was crowded but I found a flattish spot and set up under bi raindrops, then sat around a fire with some other they hikers and some backpackers.
Birds:
Brewer's Blackbird
Song Sparrow
Mountain Bluebird
Cassin's Finch
Brown Creeper
Oregon Junco
Hermit Thrush
Chipping Sparrow
Western Wood-pewee
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