Cathedral Lake to Upper Lyell Canyon

Mileage 16.4 miles (26.4 km), total 34.9 miles (56.2 km)

The start of the day was fairly easy with a long descent down into Tuolumne Meadows. For once, it was nice being the ones who were speeding down the descent rather than crawling up a pass at a slow pace. The descent down to Tuolumne was fairly busy. At one point, we passed a Ranger who was on his way up the trail carrying a strange piece of equipment with him. He was pretty friendly and mentioned he was heading up to conduct studies on the fish levels with the lakes. Nice job.

We reached the car park eventually and thought we might catch the shuttle bus but the sight of approximately 100 PCT hikers made us realise that we might have quite a wait so we decided to instead walk the mile or so along the Highway. Eventually we came to the Tuolumne Meadows Grill where we did a small resupply and ate to our heart’s content.

After stocking up, we headed to the Post Office to mail a few things back to the Hotel in LA. Given the heat on the trail and general lack of snow, we mailed our microspikes back to lighten our pack a little. The guy at the Post Office was pretty friendly and his badge said ‘Post Maestro’ rather than Postmaster. The Post Office was tiny and full of resupply packages for PCT hikers. The area outside the Post Office and Grill was also full of PCT’ers organising their resupplies for the stretch ahead.

After our break, it was time to head on up the JMT/PCT through the Tuolumne Meadows campground and on to Lyell Canyon. The area around the campground was really nice with the Tuolumne River flowing across granite slabs through the forest.

After Tuolumne, it was time to head up Lyell Canyon which we had been really looking foward to having seen the photos whilst planning our hike. It was actually everything we expected it to be and was a beautiful sight as we walked through the meadows surrounding the river. Lyell River itself was really nice with crystal clear waters that meandered gently through the meadows. There was a lot of deer around the meadows but we didn’t see any sign of bears.

The walk through Lyell Canyon was really nice not just for the views but also because it was flat which made a nice change from the last few days and what we knew is to come. The path gradually made its way towards Upper Lyell Canyon and we were able to look back across the beautiful views of the section we had just walked through.

Unfortunately, the easy part of the day was now over and we faced an extensive climb through Upper Lyell Canyon towards our campsite for the day.  We had beautiful views of the upcoming Donohue Pass (tomorrow’s climb) as we reached the upper part of the canyon.

The climb was steep and long as well as being warm. Most of the people we came across told us it was only another mile or so to the campground. When we were still going after a mile, I realised one of the rules of the JMT which is that it is always further (or seems further) to go than you think – hence then name of the JMT documentary ‘Mile, mile and a half…’. The upside of the climb was a beautiful view down into the canyon.

Eventually, it flattened out a little and we reached the Upper Lyell Canyon campground. We crossed the bridge and managed to find a few spots tucked away alongside the river. Tonight was the night before my birthday (and it was my birthday in the Australian time zone) so it was nice to be in such a good spot even though it felt a long way from Perth!