John Muir Trail day 3

Today we got up at around 8am. While making tea for breakfast two bucks waltzed through our campsite. They both had nice racks, one had five points on each antler. These deer weren’t as friendly as the one the day before. After this distraction we finished up breakfast and packed up.

The trail to the Cloud’s Rest junction was 2.5 miles and gave us some nice views. While on the way up Mike floated the idea of hiking Cloud’s rest since we were here. Got some photos inside a giant tree stump.

When we got to the junction we waffled for a bit on what to do. Spoke with a German couple for a little and then decided to head down to the road. About a hundred feet down the trail we met another group of people hiking Cloud’s Rest. We spoke with them for a little bit and they convinced us to hike it. The one man said that “Cloud’s Rest scares the Half Dome out of you. Good thing we did it the day before. Found out that they were showing one of their friends from Maryland the area.

So we dropped our packs and started our ascent of Cloud’s Rest. The trail was mild and we only had 800 vertical feet to go up over a 1.8 mile distance. Along the way we were provided with some good views of the surroundings.

The real treat came once we broke treeline. The one man was right and the views from Cloud’s Rest put those from Half Dome to shame. You get a full 360 degree view of Yosemite. A good half of what you see is blocked out on half dome, by Cloud’s Rest. Up top we met the German couple that we saw the day before and pointed out the doe to.

 

The hike down took a bit. After descending Cloud’s Rest the trail started going up hill for a bit. This slowed our pace a little. Once we came to the downhill section I took off. Sped through all the switchbacks and finally arrived at the next trail junction.

Here I waited for Mike and Rich for about 10 minutes. We then checked out the lake and headed for the road. Once there we hitch hiked to Tuolomne Meadows. It took a little but we eventually got picked up by a nice family in a mini van. Chatted with them while the drove us to our destination. Eventually we realized we went too far when we left Yosemite. Luckily it was only a 10 minute drive back to the campground.

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