Day 2 of our hike on the John Muir Trail was…arguably the most uneventful.  Not that it made the scenery any less beautiful.

We didn’t have any “major” points of interest to climb over or walk past, but yes, the same beautiful and varied terrain entertained us all day.

The day started with an excellent sunrise over the Sunrise High Sierra Camp.

   

We weren’t in any sort of hurry today so took our time eating breakfast and breaking camp; we were back on the trail by around 8:30 or so, making our way to the base of Half Dome.

The second day was also nice because we weren’t immediately presented with a steep uphill trail; we trekked our way through the rest of Sunrise Meadow before starting up the incline that led us partially up Sunrise Mountain (for whatever reason it doesn’t take you all the way to the top).  There were a few ups and downs during the morning, but nothing too terribly taxing.  We had plenty of time for pictures and to stop and smell the roses.

Something I found particularly interesting about Yosemite (besides its lack of humidity and largely varied terrain) was the ground itself.  In Georgia you’re typically either on dirt/duff or rock, and that’s it.  On the John Muir Trail I felt like I got to backpack on everything!  You might walk on dirt for awhile , but you’ll eventually have to start stepping over rocks.  That might lead you to a complete rock surface for awhile…but then as you continue the rocks might start breaking down again so you find yourself walking on what becomes smaller and smaller gravel.  And then the gravel gets so small that you realize you’re actually walking on sand!  While it was sometimes annoying (sand is actually not my favorite surface for backpacking) it was still pretty neat.

After reaching as far up Sunrise Mountain as the trail would take us, a super-serious-steep descent began.  With switchbacks galore, the trail was steep and put some pain on my knees and feet.  Despite that we moved quickly, since all in all it was still easier than hiking upwards.

Part way through the second day we got to see the best wildlife sighting of our trip – a coyote!  We were hiking through a more wooded portion of the trail when my dad suddenly stopped and pointed.  I was bringing up the rear (being the “caboose”, if you will), so didn’t immediately know what we stopped for.  Luckily, I was still first on the draw with my camera.

…Despite being fastest, though, I still wasn’t fast enough to get any great pictures…but I’m still excited that you can at least see the coyote just 10 feet away.  It was a surprising 60 seconds.  All 3 of us froze and simply watched as the coyote left the trail, took a detour around us, and returned to the trail behind us.  It was like we were just obstacles in the roads, which I suppose we were.  It was he perfect animal sighting – close, long enough to get a good look, and completely uneventful.

We made really good time and stopped for lunch at Cloud’s Rest Campsite around 11:30 or noon; we actually almost missed since it wasn’t marked anywhere.  There we found a place next to a stream to put down our packs and soak our feet for awhile; it was very comfortable.  Albeit cold.

So we relaxed at Cloud’s Rest for an hour or two, eating lunch, soaking our feet and dozing in the sun.  We only had around a mile left to go until we made it to Half Dome, so there was no reason to rush.  Just like any other type of vacation rushing can be stressful, so planning to have plenty of time to get where we were going was an excellent plan.

After our rest we made our way back to the trail.  Just like finding Clouds Rest camp, we also had trouble finding our way back to the appropriate trail.  For some reason if you’re hiking north to south it seems like they have less signs set up.  Luckily a hiker pointed us in the generally right direction, and from there we found this sign confirming which way to go.

Also at the bottom of the sign you can see 2 other flyers.  The one on the right is a bear sighting warning.  We hadn’t seen any of these coming from Tuolomne Meadows, but now we were getting closer to the more highly traveled trails.  Michelle mentioned that, somewhat unintuitive-ly, the bears are actually more likely to be in populated areas since that’s where all the food is.  Plus, since the more populated areas tend to have less “serious” hikers and backpackers, they’re probably less likely to have their food properly locked up.

On the left is a much sadder sign for a missing old man.  Again, we hadn’t seen these earlier on the trail, but from that point on we saw a notice on every sign along the trail and also all over Yosemite Valley.  The man had disappeared something like a few weeks or a month earlier, and they had his picture and all his gear listed in case someone had seen him, his tent, or anything else that may have belonged to him.  It was sad…I hope that maybe he’s just living a low-key life in the woods for awhile. 🙁

Our last ~1 mile walk from Clouds Rest was easy-going and, of course, beautiful.  The most exciting thing about it was we were walking straight towards Half Dome; it was a prospect all 3 of us were a little nervous about, I think, so getting closer and closer to it while it loomed over us was exciting in the same way as a tall roller coaster: nerve-wracking, but exciting nonetheless.  Especially because the closer we got, the more it dawned on us how steep it actually is!

On our way to out stopping point, the Half Dome Trail, we kept an eye out for good camping spots.  Since we planned on leaving our packs at camp and hiking Half Dome the next morning with day packs, we didn’t want our camp to be too far away from the trail.  Luckily we came upon a wonderful site where the John Muir Trail and Half Dome Trails intersected.  We walked up a small incline and parked ourselves on a mostly flat spot (seen above) with plenty of space to relax, cook, and do our business.  Outside of being slightly tilted, it was great. We also had a deer wander into our camping area later in the evening, but it was pretty mellow.  It stood around chewing at bush for probably a good 30 minutes; none of the noise we made (“hey poochie!”) could distract, deter, or upset this deer in the slightest.  Interesting, but not amazing. ^_^

Dinner that night was a fantastic meal of cheese tortellini with chicken and sundried tomatoes.  My father is a serious chef on the trail.  It was delicious and hit the spot.  And for dessert we had his famous fruit compote – another winner (even though it had no chocolate in it).  It was a wonderful end of the day.

No other animal sightings that day or night, though for the first time we actually had to rely solely on our bear canister to hold the smellables since we weren’t in an official campground (and thusly were no bear boxes).  It took a little old-fashioned Tetris work, but we got all the food into the canister and everything else we were worried about (cooking pot, forks, hand sanitizer) was put into a sack and placed on top of the canister far far away from us.  We didn’t have any problems with animals.

And thus ended our 2nd day on the trail!  More to come on our trek up Half Dome and the end of our trip soon!

If you’re curious, the topo for our 2nd day’s hike can be found here.  We hiked from the High Sierra Camp to the base of Half Dome.

See my previous Yosemite posts:

• How to Pack for Yosemite
• YNP: John Muir Trail Day 1