On day four of my section hike from Tuolumne Meadows to South Lake Tahoe, I was taking a break and swatting flies in spectacular but hot Jack Main Canyon, about forty miles from town, when a fellow in a straw hat with an enormous staff dashed by, flashing me a smile.
I caught up to him and his friend from New Zealand a couple of miles down the trail. Honeybun (aka Griffin Barry) was on his sixth-third day on the trail and looked it — but also looked to be loving it. I didn’t get a great picture, but maybe you’ll get the idea:
He with his friend Miner, from New Zealand, blog at nomadspct.wordpress.com and I recommend you take a look — one of the better pictures of what it’s like to hike the trail from what I’ve seen.
But I also recommend you take a look at some of the pictures to follow from this part of Section I, miles 986 to 996 or so (Dorothy Lake). The Yosemite Wilderness. Sets a high bar:
Jack Main Canyon is wet, granitic, and wild:
The canyon borders Grace Meadow, and boy is it ever that:
I ran into this fellow, Robert, as I was clomping along, and we chatted a little.
“If this were Alaska, you’d see twenty bears out here,” he said. We agreed that neither of us had seen any sign of bear, not scat, not a bear, not even a paw print in the wet sandy bottoms where, he said, you always saw tracks if they were in the area. Later I asked at the park service about it but they shrugged it off, saying maybe the bruins had just taken up residence somewhere else.
Robert grimaced when I mentioned that I hoped to make it to mile 1000 that day and suggested I take a look at Dorothy Lake, just a couple of miles down the trail.
“There’s nobody there!” he said. “Except some horses.” Sure enough.
Folks, Norman Rockwell himself could not have created a more perfect campsite. About forty feet from the water, under trees, with a fire circle, flat ground to pitch a tent, spectacular views — and the gentle clanking of the bells on the horses across the water. And a beach! I couldn’t leave it if I tried. I did try, to no avail.
And at dawn, a deer!
Not to mention a view or two:
Dorothy Lake. Don’t forget it. One of the great beaches of the Sierra.
Kit Stolz 