John Muir Trail, Day Two

Morning came, and its amazing what a good night sleep can do for tired muscles, and a relief that my sleeping pad/bag and tent we’re all able to provide a good night sleep.

We were both still a little sore from the previous days hike, so we decided it would be prudent to hike a shorter amount today, closer to 10 miles than the original 12 miles planned, and with a few steep but short sections to hike, we’d still have our work cut out for ourselves. But what we realized, more and more throughout the trail, is that whenever you started feeling tired, Yosemite would throw one of those crystal clear lake/mountain combos at you, motivating you to carry on.

We’d had just started hiking on Sunday, when we came across Shadow Lake and it was a real beauty!

We also came across some really nice examples of huge Bonsai trees growing in the wild.

And shortly around noon, we started to see how the high “sierra’s”, the Spanish for sawtooth, got their name!

But that was just a warm up, as our elevation rose, and the trail got rockier, we started seeing amazing vistas of alpine valleys and mountains in the distance!

By lunchtime we stopped off at Garnett Lake, a really perfect picnic spot, with incredible views of Banner Peak

One of the nicest things about the trail, is because you met so few people, typically about 10-12 a day, everyone was very friendly asking you how you were, where you came from and where you were going, training information on bear sightings, side hikes and good campgrounds. It was at Garnett we met a really lovely, older Japanese lady, who was carried a huge backpack, that she told us weighted 44lbs, despite looking like she barely weighed more than 120lbs herself! Shortly after we left Garnett Lake that a solo hiker recommended we stop for the night at Thousand Island Lake, as it was the “stuff of magazine covers” and given that meant an even shorter hike that day we readily agreed!

Thousand Island Lake didn’t disappoint! And because we arrived there so early, the day was still warm enough to enjoy a quick dip in the chilly lake to wash ourselves off!

It was really nice seeing how the mountain and lake took on a completely different look as the sun set and rose. Here’s Thousand Island Lake at dusk (about 7:45pm)

Here it is again, at first light in the morning (about 5:45am), all silver-y!

And here it is just as the sun rose, just 15 minutes later, being bathed in a warm glow

Finding a good campground at Thousand Island Lake was a little more difficult, as anywhere in Yosemite National Park, you can only camp 100 feet from the trail, 100 feet from any lakes and rivers, and not camp on any green grass, all while trying to find something flat enough to put up a small tent. At Thousand Island Lake that meant myself and Ken ended up sleeping about 200 feet from each other. I woke up in the middle of the night to hear a pack of coyotes howling at the moon, with their barks echoing around the valley. A little later I heard Ken shout out “NO!” which really woke me up! I shouted over, “are you ok?” and he shouted back “yes” so I figured he’d just been talking in his sleep, but it took a little while to fall back to sleep after that!

In the morning I got the full story. Turns out Ken had put up his tent behind a bush (for shelter) but unbeknownst to him, directly on a animal trail. In the middle of the night he had felt a large animal, probably a deer, brush against his tent, hence why he shouted out, but luckily whatever it was quickly dashed away!

So after a less than restful night sleep we were ready to head off for day three!