Long trails

Backpacking in Yosemite 

Our last three days were greuling. I think the milage was 13, 14, and 17, but I don't remember now. It always feels like more, anyway. We headed south towards Isberg Pass, then looped north again and followed the bottom of the valley we had been hiking above. On the last day there was a tremendous rainstorm. The kind that lasts all day and soaks absolutely everything. We decided to hike all the way out into the Yosemite valley for the night, so we trudged soggily past the misty monoliths that make the valley so famous. The only reason this was a good idea was the veggieburger waiting for me in a cafeteria at the bottom.
This picture is from our camp the night after Bernice lake. The trail climbed haltingly for the first seven miles or so, then followed south along what was little more than a ledge. Thunderstorms rolled in and continued all afternoon, and we were exhausted, so we pitched camp at an incredible spot just next to the trail where the ledge widened out. The whole Clark Range was open to the west, and you could see the storms brewing over the peaks and the silver of rivers shooting thousands of feet straight down the carved granite to the valley below.