R02/R03 TR: A little walk on the JMT, Happy Isle to Red's 09/01 to 09/08 2019

[rlown]

Nice report! If I set up a base camp and intend to wander around, I sometimes set a waypoint on my GPS for the camp location.

[Harlen]

Satchel-Buddah, you somehow managed to hit it just right at 1000 Island Lake. Looking even more appreciatively at your photos from this trip, my new favorites are the ones of the clouds piling around Ritter and Banner Peaks- (especially the first and second panos from Day 6). Great light, color, and we can just feel the weather creating those clouds, and forcing them through the great mountains.

SSSdave wrote:  

You've learned a list of lessons you will be wiser about in the future..... Many thru hikers only experience Thousand Island Lake in late afternoon when they arrive which is unaesthetically back lit. They make dinner and spend evening hours as camp bodies. Then at sunrise they are still asleep, slow to rise, go through usual rituals, are still groggy sipping coffee. By time they get onto the trail at 9am, light is becoming harsh and breezy waters are no longer calm and reflecting, they've missed the experience why it is world class as though being able to say they were there is all that mattered. 

C9, we appreciate the candor of your hopefully constructive critique of longtime SSSdave, but take it easy on us olde guys- we do deteriorate with age.

And to SSSdave:

Great stuff, from the anals of so much other great stuff of yours.  Dave, we think you need to get this stuff down in a book for future generations, because as you've pointed out:  "[all of your] stuff smells like sweet, fresh roses, and [you] like it."
Might you adapt that line into a poetic title for your book?:   

My Stuff Smells Like Roses, and I Like It!

*of course, you'll have to self-publish your stuff

[wsp_scott]

Great report, definitely not too wordy, very nice photos

I am very jealous of your mountain lion experience, that is a once in a life time experience

[Satchel Buddah]

Thank you all for the kind words!

SSDave, when I initially planned the trip, I set myself a lazy pace with 10 miles/day on average, ha - trying to plan exactly as you said, favor the light early/late with smallish hikes in between. My silliness not bothering to research half dome impacted day 2 travel, but I saved that one, arriving at Cathedral lakes in time to enjoy perfect light and that sunset/sunrise were a bit of a photographic orgy. Next hike I will try to set all days like this one!
The resupply in Tuolomne (no regrets, it made me discover lovely aspects of the hiker culture) was too long, should have skipped the burger! That and the overachieving of the previous night/morning tanked my push to the head of Lyell, making the donahue day too big (I could have split it, but the lure of a basecamp at TI was too big). Then wasting all that time trying to find my camp on day 3 killed that evening light opportunity again

I did think of dropping a GPS flag on camp at TI, but it seemed unnecessary in the morning. Lesson learned! Had I not obsessed with the blue tent, I would have walked back straight in camp - the biggest lesson I got from this trip is how fatigue impacts my mental ability. I'll be prepared for this next time.

As for the mountain Lion encounter, it was pretty extraordinary and there will be no do-over But it was so fast, the puma was in the shade, and I regret that I did not get a "good look" at it - could not stare at its eyes or count the hairs on his face or decompose his run motions . He was a blurred shape melding in the shadows, two leaps, there and gone the next instant. I got a sense of its long large shape when it flattened on that rock in front of me to prime his second leap, white tipped tuft of hair swinging at the end of its long tail extended behind him. So, I still hope I'll get to see another one someday, maybe a little further off, napping on a rock or traveling through a slope

Here are a few more pictures - I brought back about 1300 shots from the trip and as I assemble nondescript multi shot panoramas and start playing with development I get some good surprises. Managed to get a sort of motivational poster with a perfectly placed hiker during the sunrise ascent of half dome, ha! This will keep me busy for a while.

[c9h13no3]

Fantastic pictures of my favorite neck of the woods. It may not be the highest elevation, but Yosemite scenery & rock quality is freakin' fantastic. I like your photography style quite a bit. I made one of them my desktop background

[Satchel Buddah]

Mister Adrenaline, if you PM me which of these pics tickled your fancy I can send you a full resolution, much more tenderly compressed picture that might improve your desktop a bit.