[Writeen Tuesday July 27th, 2PM.  Complete photoset here.]

Just as we hit the trail Monday morning we found the trail blocked by a doe and her two spotted fawns.  They largely ignored us but managed to keep a modest distance from us as we inched quietly forward along the trail.

Our climb for the day was tedious as feared, constant uphill and switchbacks climbing out of the Lyell Canyon, but the temperature was mild and the mozzies continued to be absent after the hailstorm.  When we eventually reached a pass a cool strong wind was blowing and we chilled quickly.  We found a sheltered spot to cook some Ramen for lunch – which never tasted so fine – followed by a short hot-sun cool-breeze nap.

The trail from Lyell Canyon to Vogelsang crosses a high, empty plateau, with a couple of shallow lakes amid flat grasslands.  But peeking up around all 360-degrees of the plain were high country peaks both new and old to us – the nearest and therefore largest monoliths being Vogelsang Peak and Fletcher Peak.  Although this little-used trail was quiet, in mid afternoon we started to encounter day hikers venturing out from Vogelsang High Sierra Camp.

The High Sierra Camps are a series of white fabric tent-cabins which can be reserved in advance.  You can have your gear packed in or ride up on one of the mule trains.  There is a kitchen which prepares your meals and even a small camp store for vital supplies, where we stopped briefly to complete our map collection down to the Valley floor.

In front of the store lounged a portly gentleman smoking a pungent cigar.  I refrained from cracks about the clean mountain air – as I was starting to qualify as a toxic hazard myself – but it was clear “civilization” was increasingly upon us.

After a short stay we breezed out for a late afternoon summit of Vogelsang Pass – a beautiful rocky landscape and yet another beautiful high country lake.  Just before the pass, I came within about 10 feet of a well-camouflaged Ptarmigan, who watched us warily but refrained from flight while her single tiny chick darted this way and that in alarm. The pass snakes between some large bounders before opening suddenly onto a sheer dropoff and another dramatic canyon view with sheer cliffs, snow-shouldered peaks, lakes and waterfalls – our last real view of the high country.  It would be all downhill from here. 

The descent from Vogelsang Pass is stunning and manages to find a path down the near vertical face.  Our original route would have had us ascending this face as a completion of this section of the High Route and we were quite grateful to be reversing this challenging route!

We continued on until the sun started to disappear, but we persisted in our goal of shedding 1500 feet of elevation to gain the sub-9600 foot elevation at which we could again have a fire – less for mozzies this time but for warmth on the coldest night so far as well as simple entertainment factor.

The morning trail again held a doe and fawn – much more skittish then the last and quick to flee.  Perhaps because the steepness and ruggedness of the canyon provided only a single axis for easy flight.

The river we followed had grown in size through aggregation and by the time we reached Merced Lake were a booming torrent crossed by occasional bridges.  I felt that we had traced these waters from their source in the high snowfields through all the stages of trickles, brooks, and streams to their maturity.  The landscape had become a series of solid rounded blocks of granite rather than the shattered geography of the higher elevations.  We passed unexpectedly through an old-growth Redwood Forest in the protection of Morraine Dome, but also encountered the remains of previous forest fires in the area.

Trail traffic continually increased, including mule pack trains heading up to Vogelsang, as we continued down to Merced Lake, and an easy onward hike towards Little Yosemite.  Mercifully easy, as a blister at last began to develop and I switched for a time from my sturdy boots to Tivas.

[Next day.]

We settled in the Backpackers’ Camp at the foot of the Half Dome trail for the night, strange to be in such proximity to dozens of other campers, and the next day simply worked our way painstakingly against the upcoming traffic down the Mist Trail past Nevada and Vernal Falls.

Camp Curry on the Valley Floor provided all the immediate gratifications – pizza and a shower – and we toured on the Shuttle Bus down to El Capitan to watch the climbers on their multi-day climb up this sheer 3,000 foot face.

We caught the YART bus, a stunning 4 hour ride from the Valley, up through Tuolumne Meadows, over Tioga Pass, down to Lee Vining and the June Lake Loop back to our car at Mammoth Lakes just after dark.

Then we fired up our cell phones, checked in on the dearest internet we’d been separated from for so long, and that’s really about the end of the story ;-).