July 04, 2008 Pacific Crest Trail

Destination: Above Matterhorn Creek
Miles: 19.3

Adrian: Happy Fourth of July Everyone!

We spent our day hiking north from Tuolumne Meadows, stopped at Soda spring for sparkling mineral water, up past the high sierra camp of Glen Aulin, up further a ways and then down into Virginia Canyon, back up to Miller Lake for dinner and then up to a forested pass above Matterhorn Creek.

Breakfast was at the Tuolumne grill and featured egg sandwiches and coffee mixed with hot cocoa. Dinner was a bad freeze dried curry from Backpacker's Pantry. Lunch was at a different forested gap and we had bagels with salami and cheese, a staple for us lately.

It was a bit cloudy today and threatened to rain but it never did. Tonight is not too cold, maybe 40 degrees and very still with a starry sky. We are stealth camped away from established sites to avoid bear encounters. It makes us a bit worried that all our food does not fit in the canisters and thusly we sleep with it in our tent. We fall asleep trying to think positive thoughts...

Kirsten:
Many hikers warned me that the trail north of Tuolumne is tough. Still, as the first few miles rolled by I naively thought to myself, "This is gonna be a piece of cake."

And then the trail got rockier. And steeper. The trail doesn't reach the same elevations as before. It does have the tendency to climb up rocky terrain for 1,500 feet then immediately drop as much or more into a canyon only to rise again. And then the cycle repeats itself.