Yosemite Backpacking 2007

IMG_3095, originally uploaded by JHerrick79.

A couple weeks ago, I spent a 6 days backpacking in Yosemite from Tuolomne Meadows, through the vicinity of Vogelsang, through Merced Lake, up to HalfDome, and down to the Valley. This pictures is our whole hiking group: Kristin Rollins, Glenn, Sharon Szolomayer, Gabriella Rollins, and myself. Click this picture to jump over to my Flickr account to see more pictures.

We had lots of adventures, and I'll tell about a few notable ones:

*On the first night we camped in Tuolomne Pass less than a mile short of our intended goal, (and and rationed our water for the night).

*We saw a bear cub, bud didn't see the momma. Kristin was torn between admiring the cute bear and looking out for the mom. We snapped a few pictures and then kept moving.

*On our 2nd night, we camped near Babcock Lake with a great view of a wildfire that had been burning for a couple of months on the peaks west of our campsite. All night we heard what sounded like thunder, but was probably tress and rocks falling.

*We met some of the most interesting people. There was the group of half a dozen cute old grandmas hiking the High Sierra camp loop. There was the two girls and one guy from W. Virginia, all wearing hiking skirts. Yes, I said all 3 of them. We got passed TWICE by a group of three dads and their pre-teen kids. Then there was the guy who climbed HalfDome with his 7 month old baby. We met some folks from Australia and England who had just started a tour through the US. Their tourguide had sent them to HalfDome with a single water bottle each. We made friends with them and filled their water bottles.

*At Merced lake we stopped for a pleasant lunch and a quick dip of our feet in the lake. It was beautiful, peaceful and relaxing, right up until the moment we started to put our shoes back on and discovered leeches on our feet. Yuck! (They came off just fine, in case you were wondering)

* I had a little staredown with a deer. I had gone ahead of the group to scout out a campsite, so I was walking alone along a narrow path when a deer sprinted out of the woods to my right. She stopped on the trail about 10 ft in front of me and just stared me down. I backed away slowly, and she jumped back off into the woods.

*Sharon and I climbed Half Dome. It was Sharon's first time to do it, and I was excited to get to be her tour guide. (Next year we'll take Jeff and Jimmy, right?)

Well, that's enough stories for now. Take a look at the pictures. It was a great adventure.