Ahwahnee, Day 2

Day 2, July 30

            Yosemite is a very busy place in the Summer. After a long morning of waiting in lines, our backcountry permit is secured, but only for a next day departure. So we had to skip what had promised to be an extraordinary first night down in Lyell Canyon. Bummed, but realizing that wherever we ended up would be jaw dropping, we weren’t too upset. Plus it’s all the more reason to return to this special, special place for another trip very soon. After a delicious hot breakfast of eggs, bacon and hashbrowns, and a good chat with the good folks sitting around the little communal breakfast table at the Tuolumne Lodge restaurant, we head out for the day. Instead of backpacking into Lyell Canyon, we day hike up to the famous Mono Pass, where you get a clear yet distant view of Mono Lake via Bloody Canyon and down through the eastern valley. As we started off, I was very conscious of the fact that something I had been planning and dreaming up for a very long time was now underway – my first visit to Yosemite’s High Sierra backcountry. Momentous moments abound this Summer.

           Passing through the first of numerous meadows that we were to visit this week, we soon were clear of the thick Lodgepole Pine forests that cover the 8,000-9,000 foot elevations. Mono Lake is actually a volcano crater and so the high hills that surround us are actually volcanic rock and shale, all different shades of red and brown. Contrasting with the perfect Sierra Blue of the afternoon sky it creates quite a color scheme. I will never cease to be amazed by the Sierra Blue out here. It seems to cover the horizon and sit on top of it, almost as if weighing down against it, fighting for that space, that distant line in the sky. A heavy, thick blue wanting to trickle down any gaps in the horizon and reach right into the ground. Lunch atop Mono Pass, gazing at the distant but enormous lake that sits much closer to sea level than we currently are, past several lovely High Sierra lakes.

            Somewhat directly, Mono Lake is one of the reasons I am here this Summer. When I was a wee lad in college, I got involved in an environmental organization that brought the Archdruid himself, David Brower, to speak at our little U of Northern Iowa. I had read about the then struggle to save Mono Lake from being completely drained to service the obscene water usage of the city of Los Angeles. Brower’s organization, The Earth Island Institute, was helping to lead the resistance to that ridiculous idea. So I learned who David Brower was, and soon had the extreme pleasure of meeting the legend and even introducing him before his speech, “It’s Healing Time on Earth.” Somewhere there’s a picture of a giddy teenager standing next to our era’s John Muir. Brower really carried the banner in the Sierra Club for years and can be credited with helping to save dozens of wilderness areas all over the country. If you like the fact that the Grand Canyon is not hundreds of feet under water you should know who this great man was. Being involved in modern environmental issues, one inevitably ends up reading about David Brower, which inevitably leads one to Mr. Muir, which inevitably leads one to reading his adventures, which inevitably leads one right into the heart of the Sierra Nevadas and Yosemite. Viva Mono Lake.

            Now above 10,000 feet for perhaps the first time in my life, and crossing mountain passes for perhaps the first time in my life, I am again amazed by the ancient glacial chill in the air and water up here. Dunking my feet and head into one of the lakes we cross that day, I am reminded of the bone numbing chill of my first glacial lake experience back at Pear Lake in Sequoia land. Scared off from a full body afternoon dip by the cold, gusty winds whipping over the lake, we slowly saunter back down towards the trailhead and an evening at the backpackers camp in Tuolumne Meadows. Day one ends with us actually chatting with two Brooklyn, NY girls at said camp. For a moment we are back in the concrete jungle, reminding ourselves how much we dislike the subway and the noise and the landlords. Living just enough for the city, even way out here. Buenas noches.